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CARTESIANISM 





CARTESIANISM 


BY 
MICHAEL J. MAHONY, S.J., Pw.D. 
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY 


FORDHAM UNIVERSITY 
Author of “Formal Logic” and “Epistemology” 


FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS 
NEW YORK 


Imprimi Potest 
Lavurentius J. Ketty, S. J. 
Preap. Prov. Provincie Marylandie Eboracensis 


HRibil @bstat 
Artuur J. Scanian, S. T. D. 
Censor Librorum 


Imprimatur 
MK Patrick, Carpinat Hayes 
Archbishop of New York 
New York, July 4, 1925 


Copyright, 1925, by 
ForpHam Unrversiry Press. 


PRINTED IN U. 8. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

Chap. I, René Descartes 

Chap. II. Exposition of His Philosophical System 

Chap. III. Its Constructive Aspect 

Chap. IV. Critical Examination 

Chap. V. Criticism (Continued) . 

Chap. VI. Occasionalism . 

Chap. VII. Ontologism . 

Chap. VIII. The Pre-Established Harmony of Leibnitz 
and the Pantheism of Spinoza 

Chap. IX. Some Practical Lessons to be Learned from 


Cartesianism 


103 
119 


129 


141 





INTRODUCTION 


HE subject that is to claim our attention and 
study in this class during the coming year is 
the “History and Criticism of the Various’ 

Philosophical: Systems of Modern Thought.” ‘That 
we may have a sufficiently clear concept of what 
this subject means, it will be well, by way of intro- 
duction, to stake off its territory and define its limits, 
so that the other branches of philosophical studies 
which may engage your attention may not encroach 
upon the property rights of our subject, or our rights 
upon theirs. 


1. What, then, in the first place, are we to under- 
stand by a philosophical system of thought? 

2. Secondly, what philosophical systems are unani- 
mously set down as modern? 

3. Lastly, what method shall we pursue in setting 
forth the history of the latter systems, and 
what standard shall we adopt in passing a crit- 
ical judgment on their merits? 


- Let us try, in the first place, to understand what is 
a “philosophy” or a philosophical system of thought, 
and how is it differentiated from all other kinds of 
thought. In other words, what does the mind 
endeavor to solve when it philosophizes? 

Now, thought may be described as the exercise of 
our reasoning faculty upon any subject. In this 
sense thought is a swbjective process or activity. 
Thought is also taken in an objective sense to signify 
the results of thought; that is, the truths which it dis- 


6 CARTESIANISM 


covers. Now, among the truths that rational thought 
brings within the sweep of our knowledge, there are 
some that are beyond and impervious to the ken of 
sense. We grasp, for instance, by thought or reason- 
ing alone, the truths of mathematics, the laws of 
chemistry, physics, and of the natural sciences; we 
may reason out the solution of great political prob- 
lems, for example, the question of the payment or 
reduction of the Allies’ war debts. 

But the rational thought that is exercised on sub- 
jects such as those and the conclusions at which it 
arrives, are not, strictly speaking, philosophy or 
philosophical thought. Philosophy or philosophical 
thought is differentiated from all other rational 
thought by two characteristics. 

In the first place, philosophical thought or philoso- 
phy exercises itself in not setting forth the immediate 
causes that explain facts or phenomena. When a 
scientist, for instance, explains that water is a combi- 
nation of H and QO, he is not philosophising. Philoso- 
phy probes deeper, and professes to set forth the ulti- 
mate or last causes of all the things that exist around 
us. All other sciences achieve their purpose when 
they assign the cause that is next to hand for any 
happening or fact. The chemist is satisfied when he 
discovers the simple material elements that compose 
a compound body, or the kind of material substance 
a combination of certain elements will form. Chem- 
istry does not ask, what ultimately is matter itself? 
What cause has brought this material universe into 
existence? These deeper questions philosophy asks 
and professes to answer. If a chemist discusses those 
questions, he is no longer playing the réle of chemist, 
but of a philosopher. The science of political econ- 
omy will investigate the causes of the production and 
distribution of the wealth possessed by men. But it 


INTRODUCTION 7 


will not ask, what is man? What is the first cause of 
his existence? Philosophy alone professes to answer 
those deeper questions. Its field of inquiry begins 
where the other sciences leave off. It ceases not to ask 
its inquisitive “whys” until its last “why” is answered. 

The first characteristic, then, that differentiates the 
science of philosophy or philosophical thought from 
all the other natural sciences is this, that philosophy 
moves thoughtfully along the successive links of a 
series of causes that account for any fact, until it dis- 
covers by its reasoning the wlttmate, or, if you wish, 
the first cause, in the series. Hence, sound philoso- 
phy must reasonably discover that the last link in any 
chain of causes, however long, rests in the hand of 
God. You may often hear a child of six or seven 
exercising this instinct of a philosopher. The child 
may begin by asking, for example, — “Mother, what 
makes the kettle boil? Mother—“The fire, of 
course.” Child — “What makes the fire?’ Mother 
— ‘The coal in the range.” Child — “Where did the 
coal come from?” Mother — ‘From the mines under 
ground.” Child— “Who put the coal in the mines?” 
The mother, astonished at the growing reasoning of 
her inquisitive child, is ultimately forced to answer — 
“God, darling.” Beyond God there is no other cause. 
He is the last or ultimate cause of all things. That is 
philosophy. It professes to lead the mind on and on 
until it points out the ultimate source, or last cause, of 
all things around us. 

All other special sciences are satisfied to remain 
and rest at some inn on the sides of the mountain of 
thought. Philosophy climbs to the top. Hence phil- 
osophy is marked off from all other natural sciences 
in this, that it is not satisfied with the discovery of 
any cause for things around us. It demands always 
the very last or ultimate cause or explanation of all 


8 CARTESIANISM 


things. So that philosophy begins where the special 
sciences leave off. 

Philosophy is marked by a second characteristic. 
It relies in its investigations and questionings wpon 
the light of natural reason. Hence, strictly speaking, 
philosophy is not sectarian. It accepts the facts re- 
vealed to us by our senses and the investigations of 
the other sciences, and then consults its natural reason 
to interpret it all. Philosophy is, therefore, limited 
to what unaided reason can discover about the origin 
of matter, the origin of man and his destiny, the origin 
of the soul, and so forth. It has to do with origins. 
Because feeble reason can discover only a very few 
truths that have been also revealed by God, the great 
bulk of divinely revealed dogmas are outside the field 
of philosophy’s vision. To be outside the field of rea- 
son does not imply, however, any contradiction to 
reason. 

Philosophy, therefore, does not include within its 
province the discovery of truths that are, as such, 
divinely revealed. ‘They are beyond its territory. 
Since it is the business of philosophy to exercise the 
powers of natural reason to discover the ultimate 
causes of naturally acquired facts, while it is reserved 
for Sacred Theology to exercise human reason on 
facts that are divinely revealed, hence philosophy is 
differentiated from Sacred Theology in this, that 
though natural reason is exercised in both, still in 
philosophy the matter upon which reason works is 
naturally acquired, whereas in the case of Sacred 
Theology the matter upon which reason works is 
supernaturally acquired, because it is supplied by 
divine Revelation. 

Having now understood what philosophy is, namely, 
the ultimate explanation which the natural light of 
reason gives of all things that exist, it is not to be 


INTRODUCTION 9 


expected, when one considers how feeble is the light 
of reason, and how prone to error, that every leader 
of thought, who thinks for himself, will agree in the 
account they give of the final explanation of the facts 
of all existence. It is as difficult for reason to keep its 
poise, so as not to swerve from the straight line of 
truth in an intricate and long process of reasoning, as 
it is for a man to keep his balance while walking upon 
a narrow plank over a deep chasm. Hence it is with 
the ultimate explanations which reason has given for 
the things around us, as itis with our watches — no two 
go just alike, yet each person believes his own. If we 
look back, then, over the history of the ultimate ex- 
planations or philosophies of all things around us, we 
shall find these philosophies as different and numer- 
ous as were the great leaders of thought that pro- 
pounded them. Plato has one kind of explanation or 
philosophy, Aristotle another, St. Thomas and the 
Scholastics another. We may illustrate the origin of 
the bewildering number and variety of philosophical 
systems in the pages of history in this way: Let a 
number of men, each furnished by the light of a dim 
lantern, attempt to trace their way through a vast 
and dark forest to a certain destination, without 
guide or compass, without the help of the sun, moon, 
or stars. Though each could, absolutely speaking, 
find his way out, yet the likelihood is that they would 
all go astray in such a trackless forest. It is as diffi- 
cult for an individual mind to track its way by the 
light of feeble reason through the labyrinth of evi- 
dence and argument, with the view of arriving at a 
correct and ultimate explanation of the universe and 
all that it contains, as it is for a man without a guide 
to make his way through a vast and unknown forest. 
Hence the bewildering varieties of the systems of 
philosophy. 


10 CARTESIANISM 


All those historical systems of Western Civilization 
(we are not for the present interested in Eastern 
philosophy) may be conveniently divided into three 
periods: 

1. The systems of the ancient Greek and Roman 
world, the chief of which were those of Plato and 
Aristotle. 

2. The philosophical system of Scholasticism, 
which is nothing else but the system of Aristotle cor- 
rected and developed, so as to bring it into harmony 
with sound reason and the truths of Christianity by 
such profound thinkers as Albertus Magnus, St. 
Thomas of Aquin,-and Duns Scotus. 

3. The many systems that have sprung up in oppo- 
sition to Scholasticism from the time of Descartes 
(1596-1650) to the present day. It is those latter 
systems that are known in history as “Modern Phil- 
osophy” or “Modern Thought.” It is with the expo- 
sition, therefore, and criticism of these latter systems 
we are concerned in our present course. They, and 
not the ancient or medieval systems, will form the 
subject matter of our present lectures. 

In order that we may not be beating the air, but 
know what we are to study in, and how to study, each 
of those modern systems of philosophical thought, 
what method shall we pursue? 

(a) The first topic that will engage our attention 
in the study of any school or system is the life, times, 
and personal character of its founder. It is a com- 
monplace to say that, that which is most intimate in 
a man, namely, his character, which is nothing else 
but a habitual inclination of his will, gives to his 
thoughts and judgments a certain bias. It is most 
difficult for feeble human nature to preserve that 
equipoise of judgment, which, like a perfect balance, 
will unerringly weigh evidence and tilt only on the 


INTRODUCTION 11 


side of truth. Hence a knowledge of the moral and 
religious character of each founder of a system, of 
his national and racial tendencies and prejudices, will 
be an invaluable guide to us, in forming a just esti- 
mate of his philosophical thought. 

It is not enough to know the personal character of 
each founder of a system. We should also endeavor 
to know his environment, because a great leader or 
writer wins thousands to his views, not so much be- 
cause he forms their opinions, but because he gives 
clear and systematic expression to the half-uncon- 
sciously formed opinions of the age in which he lives. 
To judge, then, of the value of a thought-system that 
gives form and expression to what is called the Zeit- 
geist, or spirit of the age, we should be acquainted 
with the intellectual, social, political, economic, and 
religious movements which dominate the times and 
country in which the founder of a system of thought 
lives. Thus did the philosophers of the Hebrew race 
at the time of Christ, biased by the prejudices of their 
times, call Christianity a “scandal,” as the philoso- 
phers of Greece called it “foolishness.” 

(6) Having gleaned an insight into the character 
and the environment of the founder of the system of 
thought which we set ourselves to study, we are ex- 
pected, in the second place, to become familiar with 
the fundamental principles of that system. The prin- 
ciples, of course, of each system will form the main 
topic of study. This knowledge can be acquired only 
by a frank and honest exposition of each system 
according to the mind of its founder. You are ex- 
pected, then, to be as familiar with the successive 
steps in the up-building of each system, as you are 
with the rooms of your home. 

Now, assuming that you have mastered the main 
outlines of each system as a whole, you are, in the 


12 CARTESIANISM 


third place, expected to observe the links of thought 
or logical connection that usually binds together a 
preceding system with the system that succeeds it. 
For, despite the diversity in the teachings of each 
philosophical system, we shall discover that a certain 
inner connection exists between the different schools 
of thought that succeed each other in time. The re- 
sults attained by the earlier philosophers were not 
lost upon those who succeeded them. On the con- 
trary, each founder of a new system makes the theo- 
ries of his predecessors, should those theories be to his 
mind satisfactorily established, the starting points of 
the new system. On the other hand, should the suc- 
ceeding philosopher consider the findings of his pred- 
ecessor insufficiently established or wholly false, the 
new system will set up, in opposition to the old, new 

principles and new foundations. In a word, one of 
' the most interesting aspects of this study of systems 
will be to detect, in the lineaments of the newly-born 
baby system, a resemblance to its parents. 

We have now, in the last place, arrived at what we, 
Catholics, deem of the highest importance in the study 
of any system of thought that may engage our atten- 
tion — namely, its criticism. That is, how far may we 
approve or disapprove of its teachings? Is the sys- 
tem consistent with, or contradictory of, itself? What 
are the reasons that justify our judgment of it? 

Now, profitable criticism has a double purpose. It 
duly acknowledges and appreciates what is true and 
noble in a philosophical work, while at the same time 
it will censure what is false. It will distinguish the 
laudable purpose of an author, from the means he 
may take to achieve that purpose. Criticism will point 
out the influence of a philosopher for good or evil 
upon his contemporaries and future generations. 

Now, praise or censure of a philosophical system 


INTRODUCTION 13 


implies in its critic a standard of judgment. What 
shall that standard be? 

At first sight it seems a very simple matter to set up 
such a standard of judgment, and say that such a 
standard, of course, shall be the philosophy of life, 
which is unanimously held to be true. But, unfortu- 
nately, all people, even the so-called educated, are, by 
no means, unanimous in their adherence to any one 
philosophy of life, any more than they are unanimous 
in professing one religious belief. Suppose it were 
my good or evil fortune, as a philosopher, to have to 
lecture to a class, some of whom were professed Mate- 
rialists, others Idealists, another group Atheists, still 
another Agnostics. My conclusions would be silently 
or vociferously contradicted by each group of my 
audience. If I established the existence of a soul or 
spirit in man, the Materialists would deny it; if I set 
forth the arguments for the existence of God, the 
Atheists and Agnostics would not accept them. If I 
asserted the independent existence of matter, the 
Idealists would be up in arms. Each group, then, 
would criticise any conclusion I may arrive at by the 
light, or may be the darkness, of their preconceived 
philosophy of life. Thoughtless people are fond of 
asserting that it is the Irish only that fight among 
themselves, whereas the truth is, that the smug, sleek 
philosophers, outside the Catholic Church, are contin- 
ually cudgelling one another’s conclusions with a pas- 
sion and vigor that ‘“out-Donnybrook”’ Donnybrook 
Fair. Where, then, shall you look for a standard 
whereby to pass a critical judgment on the different 
antagonistic systems that will come, in the course of 
your study of “Modern Thought”, before the bar of 
your Reason? 

Of course, it is usually admitted that the ultimate 
standard that is to decide the truth or falsehood of a 


14 CARTESIANISM 


system of philosophy is the evidence that is presented 
for or against such a system before the judgment seat 
of reason, somewhat in the same way as a prisoner is 
declared guilty or not guilty by the evidence pre- 
sented in a court of law. Our natural reason has no 
other test whereby we are able to distinguish truth 
from falsehood except the objective evidence that may 
be available to guide our judgment. For objective 
evidence is accepted as the ultimate criterion of truth. 

If philosophers, then, would sift the evidence for a 
philosophy of life, free from the sway of preconceived 
bias or prejudice, in accord with the laws of reason- 
ing, they would all arrive at the same solution of the 
vital problems of life, and all say the same thing, ac- 
cording to the Apostle. But history shows that, as a 
fact, philosophers have not done so, and if we may 
judge the future by the past, we are obliged to con- 
clude that philosophers will never agree. 

Is there any sun in the heavens, any star in the fir- 
mament to tell the philosophical mariner when his 
ship of reason strays from the course of truth and 
evidence? Is there given to men at least a negative 
standard of truth, when the positive standard of evi- 
dence becomes obscure either through carelessness in 
its examination, or because of some bias of mind? I 
mean by a negative standard of truth simply this —a 
standard of truth that will warn you that a philo- 
sophical system must be false, though it will not tell 
you the solution that is alone true. 

Let me illustrate the nature of a negative standard 
of truth by a familiar example: Suppose you are a 
teacher. A pupil brings up to you his sum in addition 
wrongly cast up. You tell him his answer is wrong; 
you rub out that answer, and send him back to his 
seat to try again. Herein you are not interfering in 
the least with the rights of your pupil’s reason, but, on 


INTRODUCTION 15 


the contrary, requiring him to exercise reason right- 
fully. Now, the teacher, in the case, is for the pupil a 
negative standard of truth. Negative, because the 
teacher simply tells the pupil his answer is not true. 
Should the teacher tell the pupil the true answer, then 
that teacher would be a positive standard of truth for 
the pupil. 

Now, is there given to philosophers a negative guide 
or negative standard, at least, to warn them when such 
conclusions of theirs as have a vital bearing on human 
- life and conduct are wrong, and which will send them 
back to their studies, as the teacher did the child, to 
review more carefully their reasoning processes, with 
the view of arriving at the true solution? Of course, a 
child is naturally humble, and will not feel any risings 
of revolt when he is told his answer is wrong. But the 
philosophers are often haughty, and may stubbornly 
refuse to obey their negative guide and remain in 
error. 

Now, I don’t know any more important principle 
to take to heart at the very threshold of the study of 
the “History of Modern Systems of Thought’, that 
may be fraught with danger for some, than this, 
namely, that all men are providentially furnished with 
at least a negative standard of truth to guide them to 
discern what is false, not in a sum of arithmetic, but in 
conclusions of philosophy. No greater calamity can 
befall anyone, than to be educated in a false philoso- 
phy. It shatters the very foundations of his intellec- 
tual, moral, and religious life. And this negative 
standard, which is to thought and science what the 
polar star is to the mariner, is the divinely revealed 
truths of faith. We frankly state, therefore, that the 
negative standard of criticism in passing judgment 
upon systems of philosophy is the infallible and au- 
thoritative teaching of the Catholic faith. Hence, any 


16 CARTESIANISM 


conclusions of philosophers, or any professed scientific 
teaching that openly and clearly contradicts an infal- 
lible truth of our Catholic faith is forthwith to be 
rejected as false, and such philosophers or scientists 
who propose such conclusions are to be sent back to 
their seats, like school-children, to ponder over their 
evidence and scrutinize their reasoning processes, un- 
til they bring their conclusions into harmony with 
truths that are hedged round by the infallible author- 
ity of Christ and His Church, which is “‘the same yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever.” 

Scholastic philosophy, the “genwina philosophia 
perenms’’, has always recognized as eminently reason- 
able the moderating influence of divine revelation as 
a negative standard or test of truth, in benignantly 
preserving from error the wayward human reason. 

But “freedom of thought and science” vehemently 
protests that the recognition of the authority of re- 
vealed faith and of the Catholic Church shackles the 
liberty of philosophy. 

We answer that philosophy, scholastic or otherwise, 
even when it recognizes the authority of divine reve- 
lation as a negative mentor, enjoys all the liberty that 
is rightly its dwe, and therefore all the freedom which 
it can reasonably claim. Reason, as exercised by 
human beings, is clothed in all the features of crea- 
turehood. It is not, and cannot be, in the nature of 
things, absolutely independent. Hence, if its Creator 
speaks and graciously reveals to reason certain truths, 
it is only reasonable that it should accord to those . 
truths its submissive and unqualified assent. And 
since truth cannot contradict truth, it devolves on 
human reason to subject its native conclusions to di- 
vinely and infallibly revealed truth, rather than sub- 
ject God-given truths to the proverbially fallible con- 
clusions of reason. The latter attitude is not the exer- 


INTRODUCTION 17 


cise of legitimate intellectual freedom. It is intellec- 
tual sedition. Hence the claim of the absolute indepen- 
dence of human reason, which is known as Rational- 
ism, is in itself irrational and therefore self-destruc- 
tive. 

This fundamental principle of scholastic philoso- 
phy, namely, that it would be unreasonable to expect 
that a truth of divine revelation should yield to that 
professed to be a product of human reason has been 
advocated by even John Locke, who was neither a 
Catholic nor a Scholastic philosopher. He says: — 
“Whatever is divine revelation ought to overrule all 
our opinions, prejudices, and interests, and hath a 
right to be received with full assent. Such a submis- 
sion as this, of our reason to faith, takes not away the 
landmarks of knowledge: this shakes not the founda- 
tion of reason, but leaves us that use of our faculties 
for which they were given us.” (B. IV., C. XVIIL, 
10.) 

Again Locke says:—“ ... . “there is one sort of 
propositions that challenge the highest degree of our 
assent upon bare testimony, whether the thing pro- 
posed agree or disagree with common experience, and 
the ordinary course of things, or no. The reason 
whereof is, because the testimony is of such an one as 
cannot deceive or be deceived; and that is of God 
Himself. This carries with it an assurance beyond 
doubt, evidence beyond exception. This is called by a 
peculiar name, Revelation, and our assent to it, faith, 
which as absolutely determines our minds, and as per- 
fectly excludes all wavering as our knowledge itself ; 
and we may as well doubt of our own being as we can 
whether any revelation from God be true.” (B.IV., 
C. XVI, 14.) 

The principle enunciated above only emphasizes the 
law that truth has an indefeasible right to reign over 


18 CARTESIANISM 


the intellect of man, and consequently the human in- 
tellect is in duty bound to submit to truth. And if the 
truth of divine revelation, once granted it as given, is 
not truth, what is? A declaration of independence by 
human reason against divine revelation would be arro- 
gant because irrational, and an abuse of free-will. By 
submitting to duly accredited truth, the intellect is 
not enslaved, but liberated. On the contrary, human 
intellects that revolt against the truths of revelation 
are often already enslaved, because they usually work 
under the bidding of an illegitimate and disorderly 
passion—the passion which is dignified by many 
modern thinkers into an intellectual virtue —irre- 
sponsible free-thought. 


a 


RENE DESCARTES 


Cuapter I. 








CHAPTER I. 
RENE DESCARTES 
(1596-1650) 


N the last lecture we have explained, by way of 
introduction to the “Philosophical Systems of 
Modern Thought”, what is meant by (1) “phil- 

osophy”’, (2) by a “System” of philosophy, (3) and 
what systems in the history of philosophy are unani- 
mously acknowledged as “modern”. 

We have likewise set forth the plan or method 
which we intend to follow in the study of each of those 
modern systems. We shall indicate (1) the chief 
events of the life, and of the life-time, as well as the 
character of the founder of each system. For the char- 
acter of a man, as well as the stirring events which 
constitute the environment in which he lived, usually 
exert a powerful influence in moulding his views and 
opinions. We shall then (2) give an exposition of his 
philosophical principles as set forth in his writings. 
Then we shall (3) point out the logical connection 
between the different successive systems of thought, 
and lastly we shall (4) offer a critical estimate of each 
system. As philosophers, we shall make use of the 
light of evidence as the standard or test of our critical 
judgments and as Catholics we shall frankly reject 
any principle or opinion that openly contradicts the 
teaching of our faith, no matter how distinguished 
may be the reputation of the philosopher or scientist 
who may present that principle or opinion for our 
acceptance. Because, as we explained in the introduc- 


22 CARTESIANISM 


tion, in a supposed conflict between the conclusions 
of philosophy or science, and a settled truth of reve- 
lation, it would be unreasonable to expect that the 
revealed truth should yield to what professed to be the 
product of reason. | 

Having completed the preliminary explanations, 
which were necessary for the better understanding of 
the subject that is to occupy our attention, we shall 
now enter into the study of that system of philosophy 
which first broke away from the tradition of Scholas- 
ticism, and inaugurated the period that is known in 
the history of philosophy as the rise of “Modern 
Thought.” That system of philosophy, which is uni- 
versally acknowledged as the herald of “Modern 
Thought’, is known as Cartesianism. It was founded 
by René Descartes Duperron, who is popularly 
known as Descartes. (1596-1650.) 

Our interest in, as well as the advantages to be 
derived from, a study of Descartes’ philosophy do 
not arise from any intrinsic value of its principles, or 
of the body of doctrines embodied therein, but because 
his system places in our hands the key that will unlock, 
at their primal source, the understanding of the many 
false principles that have moulded the thought and 
guided the purposes of those men of intellect, whom 
the non-Catholic world has lauded as its great teach- 
ers for the last three hundred years. The best means 
of acquiring a knowledge of the fallacious principles 
that lie at the basis of the fantastic theories of so 
many modern thinkers is to examine the sources from 
which these erroneous principles originally sprang. 
“He who considers things in their growth and origin”, 
says Aristotle, “will obtain the clearest view of them.” 
And, strange to say, though Descartes was himself a 
pious Catholic, yet he has given to the world a system 
of philosophy that is, in a large measure, the original 


RENE DESCARTES 23 


source of those diseased germs of thought that have 
infected the philosophical systems of a large section 
of the intellectual world for the last three hundred 
years. It is this diseased thought of Descartes, ac- 
cepted in whole or in part by so many modern phil- 
osophers in France, Germany, Italy, England, and 
America that has bred, as we shall see in the course of 
our study, the Materialism, the Atheism, Pantheism, 
and consequently the immorality of international, 
national, and domestic relations which is at the back 
of the restless confusion of the world to-day. Itis true 
that philosophy alone, even were it solid and whole- 
some, could never and will never regenerate the world. 
But it is equally true that false philosophies will 
aggravate the tendency in human nature towards 
degeneracy. 

Before entering, however, into the exposition and 
criticism of Descartes’ philosophy, it will be helpful 
to know something of his life and character, that we 
may better evaluate the philosophical child of his 
brain. 

Towards the close of the Sixteenth Century, 1596, 
twenty-four years before the Mayflower landed on 
Plymouth Rock, René Descartes (Duperron) was 
born at La Haye, in the Province of Lorraine, 
France. For the better understanding of Descartes’ 
mentality and loyalty through life to the Catholic 
Church, it is not without significance to note that his 
parents were natives of celtic Brittany. Everybody 
knows that the Bretons, who gave so many distin- 
guished men to France, are one of the most ancient, 
bravest and staunchest Catholic peoples in the conti- 
nent of Europe. 

A few days after his birth his mother died of some 
disease of the lungs. Inheriting, no doubt, her deli- 
cate health, he grew up a sickly boy, yet his mind was 


24 CARTESIANISM 


so brilliant and inquisitive that at the age of eight he 
was called by his companions the “young philoso- 
pher”. Up to the age of sixteen he was a pupil of the 
Jesuits in the famous college of La Fleche. Speaking 
in after years of his college days, he says, “I was 
studying in one of the most celebrated schools of 
Europe, in which I thought there must be learned 
men, if such were anywhere to be found. I had been 
taught all that others learned there; and, not con- 
tented with the sciences actually taught us, I had, in 
addition, read all the books that had fallen into my 
hands. I knew the judgments that others had formed 
of me; and I did find that I was not considered in- 
ferior to my fellows, although there were among them 
some who were already marked out to fill the places 
of our instructors’. (Method 1). He retained through 
life a deep attachment to his former Jesuit teachers; 
his only regret was their refusal to accept his philoso- 
phy. 

Though his natural bent was towards Mathematics 
and Science (he wrote several works on Mathematics 
and Science), he was also an ardent student of litera- 
ture. On leaving college at the age of sixteen (1612), 
he went to Paris, and for a time gave up all study. Of 
this period of his life he says: “As soon as my age 
permitted me to pass from under the control of my 
instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters 
and resolved no longer to seek any other science than 
the knowledge of myself and the great book of the 
world”. While yet in Paris and towards the end of 
his teens, with a view of devoting his time to the study 
of self and his own thoughts, he formulated the great 
motto of his life, — “Bene vivit qui bene latuit” (“To 
live in close seclusion is the way to live well”), and 
having retired into seclusion in a lonely part of Paris, 
he again resumed his studies. During this time of in- 


RENE DESCARTES 25 


trospective brooding, even before his twenty- -first 
year, like many another ambitious youth of inquisi- 
tive mind, he was obsessed by a passion for truth, but 
failed to discover what, for him, was a satisfactory 
ground for certainty either in the sciences or in the 
philosophy which he was taught in school. Hear his 
reflections on the philosophy of his time. He says, 
“Of Philosophy I will say nothing, except that I saw 
that it had been cultivated for many ages by the most 
distinguished men, and yet there is not a single matter 
within its sphere which is not still in dispute, and noth- 
ing therefore which is above doubt.” (Method I.) 
His inquisitive and sensitive mind became, so to 
speak, the heir of all the confused ideas that had their 
origin in the so-called “Illumination” of the human- 
ists of the Renaissance and of the Protestant Refor- 
mation. (Hist. of Phil., Klimke, Vol. I., p. 303.) 
This confusion caused a wave of utter Scepticism to 
sweep over his soul. Harassed by his intellectual scru- 
ples, he resolved, at the age of twenty-one (1617), to 
obtain relief in travel and in the distractions of an 
active life. 

“I spent,” he says, “the remainder of my youth in 
travelling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding 
intercourse with men of different dispositions and 
ranks, in collecting varied experience.” (Method I.) 
For this purpose he became a soldier. He served in 
the army of Prince Maurice in Holland and Ger- 
many and later under the Elector of Bavaria. It was 
at this period he visited Loretto to pray for light and 
deliverance from his painful doubts, at the famous 
Shrine of the Blessed Virgin. While he was living in 
winter quarters at Neuberg on the Danube, in his 
twenty-fourth year (1619-1620), the mental crisis of 
his life occurred. It was then he discovered what he 
thought would unlock all the mysteries of nature, and 


26 CARTESIANISM 


lay a solid foundation for philosophical thought — 
his famous “Universal Methodic Doubt.” 

We find an exact statement of this “Universal Me- 
thodic Doubt” in his own words. He says, “Not that 
in my doubt I imitated the Sceptics who doubt only 
that they may doubt, and seek nothing beyond uncer- 
tainty itself; for, on the contrary, my design was 
simply to find ground of assurance, and cast aside the 
loose earth and sand that I may reach the rock or 
clay.” (Method III.) Hence he intimates that the 
older Sceptics doubted for the sake of a doubt; Des- 
cartes doubted that he might ultimately reach cer- 
tainty. The precise difference, then, between Descartes 
and the real Sceptics is, that the end or goal of all 
thinking for the real Sceptics was dowbt; whereas the 
end or goal of Descartes’ method was certainty. Des- 
cartes professed to make of his universal doubt a 
means or road to ultimate certainty. Hence did he 
call his doubt methodic. In order to establish beyond 
all cavil, that Descartes really doubted all and every 
truth -—— the testimony of the senses, of memory, con- 
sciousness, self-evident first principles or geometrical 
axioms and even the principle of contradiction, I 
shall quote his own words: 


“T will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is 
sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but 
that some malignant demon, who is at once ex- 
ceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all 
his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose the sky, 
the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all 
external things are nothing better than illusions 
of dreams, by means of which this being has laid 
snares for my credulity. I will consider myself 
without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the 
senses, and as falsely believing that I am pos- 


RENE DESCARTES AM f 


sessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed 
in this belief and, if, indeed, by this means, it be 
not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of 
truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, 
namely, guard with settled purpose against giv- 
ing my assent to what is false, and of being im- 
posed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his 
power and artifice.” (Method I.) 


Descartes brooded over this methodic doubt from 
the time he left college (1612), when he was only six- 
teen, for the period of eight or nine years, partly 
spent in retirement in Paris, partly in the active ser- 
vice of a soldier’s life, but so far, he had not as yet 
published to the world the results of his long investi- 
gations. It was only in 1629, when he was thirty-three 
years of age, that he retired to Holland, and there 
published for the first time his philosophical works — 
the famous Discourse on Method (1687), his Prin- 
ciples of Philosophy (1641), and his Meditations 
(1644). These works attracted the attention of the 
philosophical world, and made of Descartes a storm 
center of controversy during the rest of his life. His 
name became European. 

At the invitation of Queen Christina of Sweden, 
who admiringly read his works, he went to Stockholm 
in 1649. The Queen was so pleased with him that she 
earnestly begged him to remain at her court and give 
his assistance towards the establishment of an Acad- 
emy of Sciences. But the delicate frame of Descartes 
was ill-fitted for the severity of the climate, and a cold, 
caught in one of his morning visits to Christina, devel- 
oped into pneumonia, which caused his death in the 
beginning of the year 1650, at the comparatively early 
age of fifty-four. Christina wept for him, had him in- 
terred in the cemetery for foreigners and placed a 


28 CARTESIANISM 


long eulogium upon his tomb. His remains were sub- 
sequently (1666) carried from Sweden to France and 
buried with great ceremony in St. Genevieve in Paris. 
Such, briefly, is the life of Descartes, truly the doubt- 
ing Thomas of Modern Philosophy. 


CHAPTER II. 
DESCARTES 
EXPOSITION OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM 


1. Its Destructive Aspect: 


In an age when the Catholic Church was involved 
in a life and death struggle with the Protestant Ref- 
ormation in Europe, it was natural that the intellec- 
tual leaders of the insurgent religious sects should 
have hailed with delight and acclamation the brilliant 
young student of the Jesuits as the “deliverer’’, the 
“emancipator” and the new “Luther of Philosophy’’, 
because he deliberately abandoned scholasticism — 
the traditional philosophy of the Catholic Church, 
and founded a new philosophical system, which the 
innovators deemed more in harmony with the princi- 
ples which they advocated, and which thus inaugu- 
rated a new era in the history of human thought. 

What, then, was this new philosophy which Des- 
cartes gave to the world? In its exposition we shall 
adhere as faithfully as we possibly can to the mind of 
Descartes by quotations from his own works, and 
then offer an estimate and criticism of his system. 

The philosophical system of Descartes falls natu- 
rally into two parts, its (1) destructive, and (2) con- 
structive aspect. 

THE DESTRUCTIVE PORTION OF DESCARTES’ Sys- 


TEM. Descartes, with the best of intentions undoubt- 
edly, set on foot a new method in philosophy which 


30 CARTESIANISM 


would, as he hoped, restore certainty and intellectual 
peace regarding God, the soul, religion and morality, 
to the sceptical and restless world of his time, which 
was thrown into confusion by the radical philosophy 
of the Renaissance, and by the more recent turmoil 
of the Reformation. Having “read”, as he himself 
tells us, “everything that fell into his hands” during 
the youthful years of his college career, when he was 
not yet mature enough to discriminate between what 
was genuine and what was spurious, his mind natur- 
ally became a prey to doubt and confusion. To get 
rid of doubt and rebuild on new foundations the entire 
edifice of philosophy, he imagined that he should 
break completely with that system of philosophy that 
swayed the learned world during “the ages of faith’. 
He despaired of scholasticism. “I saw’’, he says, “that 
philosophy has been cultivated for many ages by the 
most distinguished men, and that yet there is not a 
single matter within its sphere which is not still in 
dispute, and nothing therefore which is above doubt’’. 
(Meth. 1.) 

As a preparatory attitude of mind, then, to the 
erection of the new edifice of philosophy which he ulti- 
mately ambitioned to build, he deliberately adopted 
(“I shall be my own deceiver”) a mental state of posi- 
tive doubt, not only towards all previous philosoph- 
ical systems, but also towards all the knowledge 
which he himself had naturally and spontaneously 
acquired during his life-time. He swept from his 
mind every item of knowledge by the merciless broom 
of doubt. 

“As for the opinions”, he says, “which up to that 
time I had embraced, I thought that I could not do 
better than resolve at once to sweep them wholly 
away, that I might afterwards be in a position to 
admit either others more correct, or even perhaps the 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 31 


same, when they had undergone the scrutiny of rea- 
son. (Meth. II.) 

All his previous knowledge, he, therefore, doubted, 
not merely by a negative, but by areal, positive doubt; 
that is, he supported his doubt by positive reasons. 
His purpose or aim in knowledge was not, however, 
that he might remain irrevocably in a state of doubt, 
but the aim of his universal doubt was ultimately to 
arrive at incontestable certainty. Hence his mental 
state of doubt, as he himself asserts, was not “‘scepti- 
cal’, that is, in order to remain forever in doubt, but 
“methodic’’, namely, with the view of making doubt a 
road or pathway along which his mind was to travel 
to truth and certainty. 

“Not”, says he, “in this (doubt) I imitated the 
Sceptics, who doubt only that they may doubt, and 
seek nothing beyond uncertainty itself; for, on the 
contrary, my design was simply to find ground of 
assurance, and cast aside the loose earth and sand, 
that I may reach the rock or clay”. (Meth. III.) 

Now, that we understand more in detail the full 
sweep of Descartes’ doubt, we will briefly enumerate 
the different spheres of true and certain knowledge, 
which the ordinary normal person, in mature life, usu- 
ally accepts, for the most part at least, as reliable, 
and then examine whether Descartes really and posi- 
tively doubted his already acquired knowledge in each 
of these spheres. 7 

The ordinary departments of certain knowledge, 
which the natural workings of the mind spontane- 
ously deliver to the intelligent man in the street, are 
as follows: 

(1) All men have an unconquerable conviction of 
the truth of immediate judgments based on the re- 
ports of the external and internal senses. 

(2) Of first principles or axioms. 


32 CARTESIANISM 


(3) Of conclusions or correct reasonings derived 
from previously known and certain premises. 

(4) Of laws which govern phenomena or facts, 
arrived at by the process of inductive reasoning. 

(5) Knowledge derived from the testimony of wit- 
nesses. 

(6) Of internal, mental facts revealed by con- 
sciousness. ] 


(1) That Descartes positively doubted, in the first 
place, all judgments that are based on the reports of 
the external senses is manifest from the passage which 
has been already quoted in Chapter I., p. 26. The fol- 
lowing passage, likewise, supplies additional reasons 
for positively doubting the reports both of his internal 
and external senses: 

“I observed that the senses sometimes misled us; 
and it is a part of prudence not to place absolute con- 
fidence in that by which we have even once been 
deceived”. (Medit. I.) 

“But it may be said, perhaps, that although the 
senses occasionally mislead us, respecting minute ob- 
jects, and such as are so far removed from us as to be 
beyond the reach of close observation, there are yet 
many other of their informations of the truth of which 
it is manifestly impossible to doubt; as, for example, 
that I am in this place, seated by the fire, clothed in a 
winter dressing gown, that I hold in my hand this 
piece of paper. But how could I deny that I pos- 
sess these hands and this body, and withal escape be- 
ing classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose 
brains are so disordered and clouded by dark, bilious 
vapors as to cause them pertinaciously to assert that 
they are monarchs when they are in greatest poverty, 
or clothed in gold and purple when destitute of any 
covering; or that their head is made of clay, their 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 33 


body of glass, or that they are gourds? I should cer- 
tainly be not less insane than they, were I to regulate 
my procedure according to examples so extravagant’. 
He forthwith makes answer to this objection, thus :— 
“Though this be true’, he continues, “I must never- 
theless here consider that I am a man, and that, con- 
sequently, I am in the habit of sleeping and repre- 
senting to myself in dreams those same things, or 
even sometimes others less probable, which the insane 
thing are presented to them in their waking moments. 
How often have a dreamt that I was in these familiar 
circumstances, that I was dressed and occupied this 
place by the fire, when I was lying in bed. At the 
present moment I certainly look upon this paper 
with eyes open; this head which I now move is not 
asleep; I extend consciously this hand, and I perceive 
it; the occurrences of sleep are not so distinct as all 
this. But I cannot forget that, at other times, I have 
been deceived in sleep by similar illusions, and atten- 
tively considering these cases, I perceive so clearly 
that there exist no certain marks by which the state 
of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that 
I feel greatly astonished, and in amazement I almost 
persuade myself that I am now dreaming! Let us 
suppose then that we are dreaming, and that all those 
particulars, namely, the opening of the eyes, the mo- 
tion of the head, the putting forth of the hands, are 
merely illusions, and that we really possess neither an 
entire body nor hands such as we see”. (Medit. I.) 
His argument for really doubting the testimony of 
his senses is, then, simply this: We are just as certain 
the objects of our dreams really exist outside of us, 
though they are illusions, as we are of the existence 
of sense-objects in our waking moments. Why, then, 
may not our life be a continuous dream, since, as he 
says, there are no certain marks to distinguish dream- 


y 
4 


Ww 
If H 
; | 


34 CARTESIANISM 


ing from waking? Descartes, furthermore, confirms 
his doubt of the testimony of his senses by this addi- 
tional reflection, which anticipates Berkeley, “The 
belief”, he says, ‘that there is a God Who is all-pow- 
erful, and Who created me such as I am, has for a 
long time obtained steady possession of my mind. 
How, then, do I know that He has not arranged that 
there should be neither earth, nor sky, nor any ex- 
tended thing, nor magnitude, nor place, providing at 
the same time, however, for the rise in me of percep- 
tions of all these objects and the persuasion that these 
do not eaist otherwise than as I perceive them?” 
(Medit. I.) 

Thus did Descartes bring himself to a real positive 
doubt of all objects of the senses, and destroy one of 
the foundations of certain knowledge. 


(2) In the second place, he now proceeds to bring 
into positive doubt the first principles or axioms of 
the ideal order: 

“Whether I am awake or dreaming, it remains true 
that two and three make five, and that a square has 
but four sides; nor does it seem possible that truths 
so apparent can ever fall under suspicion of falsity or 
uncertainty’. 

“Nevertheless, as I sometimes think that others are 
in error regarding matters of which they believe 
themselves to possess a perfect knowledge, how do 
I know that I am not also deceived each time I add 
together two and three, or number the sides of a 
square, or form some judgment still more simple, if 
more simple, indeed, can be imagined?” (Medit. I.) 

Descartes reached the final climax of positive doubt 
when he supposed that he might be under the influ- 
ence of some “malignant demon” who was ever enm- 
ploying all his artifices to deceive him. He says, “I 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 35 


will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly 
good and the fountain of truth, but some malignant 
demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceit- 
ful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will 
suppose the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, 
sounds, and all external things are nothing better than 
illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has 
laid snares for my credulity. I will consider myself 
without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses 
and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; 
I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and, if, 
indeed, by this means, it be not in my power to arrive 
at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is 
in my power, namely, guard with settled purpose 
against giving my assent to what is false, and of 
being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his 
power and artifice”. (Method I.) This supposition of 
a “malignant demon”, which Descartes seemed to 
have seriously entertained, would relegate to positive 
doubt the deliverances of all his cognitive faculties. 
It is difficult to understand, in the face of this suppo- 
sition, how he could ever trust the two great sources 
of knowledge, his senses and reason, yea, his con- 
sciousness. Because it is at least conceivable that all 
his cognitive faculties are of such a nature that even 
their right use leads to doubt. 

Thus did Descartes pluck from his mind every 
shred of certain knowledge he ever possessed, whether 
through the exercise of his senses, which seemed to 
put him in touch with the external world of matter, 
or through the exercise of his intellect, in cognising 
first principles, and deliberately plunged himself into 
the murky darkness of wniversal doubt, and para- 
lyzed all his faculties. 


(5) What was Descartes’ attitude towards knowl- 


36 CARTESIANISM 


edge which well-balanced people acknowledge may be 
acquired through the testimony of witnesses, or 
through the authority of historical evidence? 

In answer to this question we may legitimately 
argue, without appealing at all to Descartes’ writings, 
that since the testimony of witnesses depends upon 
the reports of what is perceived by the senses, and 
since Descartes rejected, or at least doubted the re- 
ports of his senses, any testimony which witnesses 
may give is discredited by him, for the simple reason 
that untrustworthy senses can yield only untrust- 
worthy testimony. | 

Let us, however, consult the views of Descartes 
himself, on what he thought of the reliability of 
human testimony. On this question he writes: 

“Even the most faithful histories”, he says, “if they 
do not wholly misrepresent matters or exaggerate 
their importance to render the account of them more 
worthy of perusal, omit, at least, almost always, the 
meanest and least striking of the attendant circum- 
stances; hence it happens that the remainder does not 
represent the truth, and that such as regulate their 
conduct by examples drawn from this source, are apt 
to fall into the extravagance of the knight-errants of 
romance, and to entertain projects that exceed their 
powers”. (Meth. I.) In this passage Descartes rele- 
gates history to the region of positive doubt. 


(3) (4) What of the third and fourth departments 
of knowledge? Did Descartes really doubt of con- 
clusions arrived at by his faculty of reason, whether 
by deduction or induction? 

In answer to this question there are two phases of 
the problem which must be kept apart. First, did 
Descartes positively doubt about all the actual output 
of all the knowledge about God, man, and the mate- 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 37 


rial world, which had been delivered to mankind by 
the exercise of reason, up to his time? Secondly, did 
he positively doubt of the capacity of reason itself to 
ever deliver to him or anybody else any reliable 
knowledge? In other words, did he doubt of the very 
possibility of ever attaining to true and certain knowl- 
edge? 

Regarding the first phase of the problem, Descar- 
tes did positively doubt all the knowledge which both 
his own and other men’s reasoning had previously 
delivered to the world. “I am constrained”, he says, 
“at last to avow that there is nothing of all that I 
formerly believed to be true, of which it is impossible 
to doubt, and that not through thoughtlessness or 
levity, but from cogent and maturely considered rea- 
sons’. (Meth. I.) 

With regard to the second phase of the problem, it 
is obvious that the above expression of wniversal posi- 
tive doubt implicitly contains, of course, a positive 
doubt regarding any and every particular item of 
knowledge; and since the capacity of reason to ac- 
quire truth and certainty is an item of knowledge, it 
follows that Descartes’ expressed universal doubt in- 
volves even this item. Hence, he doubted the capacity 
of reason to acquire any certain knowledge. 

On the other hand, there are numerous passages in 
his writings which express the utmost confidence in 
the trustworthiness of his reason. Indeed, Descartes 
so exaggerated the power of reason that he made of 
it a fetish. For instance, he says: “As for the opinions 
which up to that time I had embraced, I thought that 
I could not do better than resolve at once to sweep 
them wholly away, that I might afterwards be in a 
position to admit either others more correct, or even 
perhaps the same, when they had undergone the 
scrutiny of reason”. (Meth. II.) 


38 CARTESIANISM 


There is in this passage an implied trust in the 
ability of his reason. How could he admit back again, 
by a process of scrutinizing them by his reason, opin- 
ions which he rejected as doubtful, if he did not trust 
the capacity of his reason to judge infallibly of their 
truth? 

Again he writes: “I further concluded that it is 
almost impossible that our judgments can be so cor- 
rect or solid as they would have been, had our reason 
been mature from the moment of our birth, and had 
we been guided by it alone’. (Meth. II.) Here he 
certainly implies that judgments arrived at by ma- 
ture reason are more correct and solid than those that 
satisfy immature reason. Does not this carry with it 
an implication of trust in mature reason? 

In another passage he says: “I could, however, 
select from the crowd no one whose opinions seemed 
worthy of preference, and thus I found myself con- 
strained, as it were, to use my own reason in the con- 
duct of my life’. (Medit. I1.) He distrusts, in this 
passage, opinions based on the reason of all other 
people, but pins his trust to his own individual reason. 
Therefore, we must conclude that Descartes trusted 
his own individual reason to attain truth. 

Now, if we compare Descartes’ profession of posi- 
tive doubt with regard to all the knowledge he and 
other men previously acquired with the above quota- 
tions, wherein Descartes seems to have the utmost 
confidence in the capacity of his reason, we arrive at 
this peculiar position of Descartes regarding the 
trustworthiness of his reason. His all inclusive wni- 
versal doubt (cf. Med. I. above) about all previous 
knowledge would lead to the conclusion that his rea- 
son never previously in his life functioned correctly, 
while his own assertions, in the quotations we have 
presented, would lead one to believe that he still had 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 39 


confidence, that, though reason heretofore in his ex- 
perience delivered only doubtful conclusions, yet it 
still has the power in the future to deliver true and 
certain conclusions. In a word, he doubted all con- 
. clusions of his own and other men’s reason in the 
world up to this time; but still trusted the inherent 
power of his own faculty of reason to function aright 
under more favorable circumstances. What Descar- 
tes really and explicitly doubted of, then, was the re- 
sults of reasoning, not the capability of reason to at- 
tain certainty and truth. But if this was Descartes’ 
mind concerning reason, his position was illogical and 
false. In the first place, if the functioning of his own 
and other men’s reasoning had brought forth, during 
the past, doubtful conclusions alone, such a strange 
result would argue inherent vitiation of the faculty 
of reason itself. A tree is known by its fruit. If rea- 
son throughout all time before Descartes bore only 
doubt, we must conclude that it was a faculty whose 
intrinsic nature it is to doubt. If reason, then, is in- 
trinsically a faculty of doubt, Descartes contradicts 
what seems to be his trust in the capacity of reason to 
bring forth certainty under any circumstances. 
Furthermore, unless Descartes admitted the truth 
and certainty of axiomatic principles, such as the 
principle of contradiction, he could never reason at 
all. For the truth and certainty of the principle of 
contradiction must be supposed in every act of rea- 
soning. If this principle is doubted, reason cannot 
function aright; and a faculty or power that cannot 
function is not a power at all. It is nullified, annihi- 
lated as a power. When, therefore, Descartes really 
doubted the principle of contradiction, and thus seri- 
ously thought that the same identical judgment could 
be true and not true at the same time and under the 
same respect, he should have ceased from, and stopped 


40 CARTESIANISM 


short of ever exercising his reason. For any exercise 
of reason is an impossibility until the principle of con- 
tradiction is implicitly at least admitted. In really 
doubting, then, the principle of contradiction, Des- 
cartes paralyzed his reasoning function, and were he 
logical, he should have suspended all exercise of rea- 
soning. That Descartes really doubted the principle 
of contradiction is manifest from the quotation cited 
on page 26. 

Our judgment of Descartes, then, with regard to 
his position on reasoning is, that though he did not in 
practice doubt the ability of his reason to arrive at 
truth and certainty, he should have logically doubted 
it, folded his arms, if he had any, and stare forever, 
through the sightless eyes of his reason, into the per- 
petual darkness of nescience. 

So far our examination of Descartes’ doubt has 
brought forth these results: he really doubted the 
reports of his senses, testifying to the existence of 
his own body and the external world; secondly, he 
doubted of the first self-evident principles of knowl- 
edge, and ought to have doubted, were he logical, the 
capacity of his reason to reach truth and certainty. 

Thus has Descartes blotted out from all the find- 
ings of sense, from all the findings of reason, both 
deductive and inductive, from all the testimony of 
witnesses, every mark of certainty. Every beam of 
truth and certainty that emanates for ordinary peo- 
ple, from the powers of sense, reason and witnesses, 
is shorn clear away. 


(6) One lone department yet remains intact out of 
the wreck of Descartes’ previously acquired edifice of 
knowledge. This department is his own conscious- 
ness. By consciousness is meant that immediate 
knowledge which we have of our own thoughts and 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT Al 


states of mind; in general, of all present operations 
of the mind. We not only feel, but we know that we 
feel; we not only act, but we know that we act; we 
not only think, but we know that we think, and that 
the feeling, knowing, thinking and acting are my 
own. 

One characteristic of consciousness must be empha- 
sized. Inthe first place, it is not the thought or the feel- 
ing or the act or the purpose itself that is conscious of 
itself, but it is I, the Ego, that is conscious of my 
thought or feeling or act or purpose, or of any other 
present subjective experience. It is “I”, therefore, 
who is conscious of the present mental states that are 
murmuring through me. It is not “the stream of con- 
sciousness” that is conscious of itself. Hence, to talk 
of a stream of consciousness wherein the stream is 
the conscious agent, and not I myself, as William 
James did, is an absurdity because an impossibility. 
Much less is it true to say, as the same author taught, 
that a subsequent thought or state of mind could be 
conscious of a thought or mental state that just pre- 
ceded it. This latter doctrine was also invented by 
William James, in order to destroy the ever-abiding 
existence, in the midst of change, of our own substan- 
tial personality, and thus pave the way for the fash- 
ionable doctrines of Phenomenal Idealism, which is 
expressed by the charming phrase of a “stream of 
consciousness’. Phenomenal Idealism would have us 
believe that nothing exists but states of consciousness 
without any permanently existing person or “Ego” 
who is conscious of them, and who brings into unity all 
our disparate internal experience. Without this uni- 
fying, substantial “Ego”, our conscious experiences 
would be like “so many beads without a string”’. 

Now we have at last arrived at the interesting and 
critical point of Descartes’ methodic doubt. The 


42 CARTESIANISM 


forces of doubt, of real positive doubt, have, like an 
invading army, swarmed across the frontiers of 
knowledge. Those ruthless hosts have so far captured 
and laid waste the fairest provinces of human knowl- 
edge. Fortresses of truth and certainty that were for 
centuries deemed impregnable — the senses, first prin- 
ciples, reason and the testimony of witnesses — have 
been shattered, and the flag of doubt flung above 
them. One, and one only, strategic position yet blocks 
the way of the onward sweep of the triumphant 
hordes of doubt. That one strong position are the 
objects of consciousness. Will the retreating armies 
of knowledge and truth rally in their might around 
the stronghold of consciousness and hurl back the 
doubting invaders, and repeat for consciousness the 
story of a Marathon or a Salamis, a Fontenoy or a 
Marne? The critical moment has arrived. The ad- 
vanced armies of doubt are already opening their 
attack upon the outer fortresses of consciousness. 
Should doubt be victorious over consciousness — the 
last hope of knowledge, so far as Descartes is con- 
cerned, truth and certainty will be no more. It was 
once said that “Freedom shrieked as Kosioski fell’’. 
Truly would knowledge shriek should consciousness 
fail. Confusion and despair would ever more domi- 
nate the human mind. On the other hand, if the for- 
tress of consciousness can repel doubt, and the truth 
and certainty of what it reveals be victoriously de- 
fended, then is it Descartes’ hope to make of his con- 
sciousness the basis of his operations, roll back, step 
by step, the doubting invaders, and set up once more 
the benign sovereignty of the queen of truth and 
certainty, over all those fair provinces which had 
yielded to doubt only a temporary sway. This was 
to be Descartes’ plan of campaign as set forth in his 
““Methodic Doubt”. We do not now say whether that 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 43 


plan was justifiable or not. But it was Descartes’ 
plan. It was a curious application of “She Stoops to 
Conquer”. Yes, truth stooped to doubt that she might 
finally vanquish doubt upon the ramparts of Con- 
sciousness. Let us describe the conflict in Descartes’ 
own words: “But how do I know that there is not 
something different altogether from the objects I 
have enumerated, of which it is impossible to enter- 
tain the slightest doubt? Is there not a God, or some 
being, by whatever name I may designate Him, who 
causes those thoughts to arise in my mind? But why 
suppose such a being, for it may be I myself am capa- 
ble of producing them? (Here he includes in his 
doubt the very existence of bodies and of God.) Am 
I, then, at least, not something? But I before denied 
that I possess senses or a body; I hesitate, however, 
for what follows from that. Am I so dependent upon 
the body and the senses, that without these I cannot 
exist? But I had the persuasion that there was abso- 
lutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky and 
no earth, neither minds nor bodies. Was I not, there- 
fore, at the same time, persuaded I did not exist? Far 
from it; I assuredly existed, since I was persuaded. 
But there is, I know not what being, who is possessed 
at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning 
(the malignant demon) who is constantly employing 
all his ingenuity in deceiving me. (Notice how fiercely 
he is fighting the battle of consciousness against 
doubt.) Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived, 
and let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring 
it about that I am nothing. So that it must, in fine, 
be maintained, all things being maturely and care- 
fully considered, that this proposition, ‘I am, I exist’, 
is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, 
or conceived in my mind”. (Method II.) We shall 
afterwards examine whether Descartes was logical in 


44, CARTESIANISM 


thus absolutely trusting the testimony of conscious- 
ness. That is, was Descartes consistent, in the face of 
other principles, in trusting his consciousness, while 
he persistently distrusted all his other cognitive fac- 
ulties? It is hard to understand why it is reasonable 
to reject the normal testimony of all other natural 
faculties of knowledge, and accord to consciousness, 
which is on the same plain of nature as the other facul- 
ties, an absolute trust. If there “is a repugnance in 
conceiving that what thinks does not exist at the very 
time when it thinks”, a “repugnance’’, indeed, which 
is admitted by all, so also is there a repugnance in 
thinking that it is doubtful “whether two and three 
make five’, and yet Descartes positively doubted of 
the latter. Does it not seem that he should, were he 
consistent, also have doubted the former? We fear 
that Descartes sacrificed consistency upon the altar 
of his universal positive doubt. 

Here is another account of the conflict in Descartes’ 
words: , 

“While we thus reject all of which we can enter- 
tain the smallest doubt, and even imagine that it is 
false, we easily, indeed, suppose that there is: neither 
God, nor sky, nor bodies, and that we ourselves have 
neither hands nor feet, nor, finally, a body, but we can- 
not in the same way suppose that we are not, while-we 
doubt of the truth of those things; for there is a re- 
pugnance in conceiving that what thinks does not exist 
at the very time when it thinks. Accordingly, the 
knowledge, “I think, therefore, I exist” (Cogito, ergo 
sum), is the first and most important certain princi- 
ple that occurs to me, who philosophizes orderly”. 
(Princip. VII.) 

Descartes has, to his own satisfaction, at least, 
fought and won. The long career of dreary doubt is 
at an end. One truth certainly is established, which 


ITS DESTRUCTIVE ASPECT 45 


no doubt can shake, no scepticism can shatter, “I 
doubt (I think), therefore, I exist’. This truth, 
which he confidently thought that consciousness had 
revealed to him, Descartes has rescued from the 
slough of doubt; he has placed it as the foundation- 
stone of his philosophy. It is a truth revealed to him 
by his own consciousness. 

Descartes was not the first to discover and recog- 
nize, that the incontestable truth of the great fact, 
“I exist’’, is established by my consciousness that I 
think. Aristotle and St. Augustine, centuries before, 
recognized the truth of the same fact. But to Des- 
cartes belongs the undying merit of emphasizing and 
expressing admirably and tersely this great principle 
and fact, “Cogito, ergo sum’. 





Cuapter ITI. 
EXPOSITION OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM 
II. Its Constructive Aspect: 


We now understand how it came to pass that Des- 
cartes professed to have emerged from the dark night 
of doubt into the light of certainty. He doubted posi- 
tively, or thought he could so doubt, all objective 
realities in the existing order of things which ordinary 
men accept as certainties. 

The testimony of his own inner consciousness, how- 
ever, to the incontestible fact that he doubted, defied 
every effort of his to doubt. He could not, even if he 
would, doubt that he doubted. But to doubt, he ar- 
gued, is to think. Now, “I think” that is, “I doubt” 
necessarily involves that the “doubter”, that is, the 
“thinker”, exists. Because a mere nothing could not 
doubt or think. Therefore, am I something outside 
of nothing? This single item of knowledge, “cogito, 
ergo sum’, “I think, therefore, I exist’, and this 
alone, Descartes saved from the wreck of doubt. The 
dawn-light of this famous principle dispelled the 
darkness of his universal doubt. Descartes thus de- 
scribes the coming of light: 

“Whilst I wished that all was false, it was abso- 
lutely necessary that I who thus thought, should be 
somewhat, and I observed the truth, ‘I think, hence I 
exist’ was so certain and of such evidence that no 
ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be al- 
leged by the sceptics capable of shaking it.” (Meth. 


48 CARTESIANISM 


IV.) That we know for certain the truth of our own 
existence, as the first fact in knowledge is incontesta- 
ble. All sane philosophers admit it. 

It may be a subject of wonder for minds not accus- 
tomed to philosophical problems to think that it took 
Descartes twenty years to establish his own existence. 
But philosophy has always to do with that which is 
ultimate and fundamental both in reality (metaphys- 
ics) and knowledge (epistemology). 

Having at last, then, dug down through “earth and 
sand’, as he expressed it, to what he deemed to be the 
foundation principle of all philosophy, Descartes con- 
fidently proceeds to evolve from this principle, step 
by step, the whole edifice of his system. Descartes, 
so characteristically French, was obsessed by a pas- 
sion for logical system and mathematical precision. 
This tendency was heightened by his mathematical 
bent of mind. He was a profound mathematician. 
Just, then, as a geometrician gradually builds up, by 
the aid of a few axiomatic principles, all the propo- 
sitions implicit in the nature of the ordinary figures 
of quantity, so it was Descartes’ hope to find his whole 
system of philosophy implicitly contained in his first 
principle. It was, then, his ambition, after the man- 
ner of the mathematicians, to draw out logically those 
implications of that principle by processes of a priori 
reasoning, and thus evolve a complete system of phil- 
osophy from a single principle, as nature evolves a. 
massive tree from a single, tiny seed. Such an achieve- 
ment is in itself an impossibility. Because sciences, 
philosophy included, are based upon independent facts 
of experience revealed to us by different cognitive fac- 
ulties, facts which cannot be derived one from the 
other by a process of @ priori reasoning. Still Des- 
cartes regarded the method of mathematics as the 
type of the method of philosophy. 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 49 


We shall, however, give an exposition of Descartes’ 
attempt to accomplish this feat, and subject each 
section, as well as the whole of his system, to rational 
criticism, with the view of rejecting what is opposed 
to sound reason, and mayhap recommending for your 
instruction what may be worthy of approval. 

Of course, Descartes, in the elaboration of his sys- 
tem, endeavored to reconstruct, on a new plan, every 
department of philosophical science. He inaugurated, 
therefore, a new departure in Epistemology, in Psy- 
chology, in Ontology, in Cosmology, and in Natural 
Theology. 

Descartes, in his philosophical writings, did not, how- 
ever, divide the expositions of his system into each of 
those departments into which the science of philoso- 
phy is set forth in modern treatises. We shall, there- 
fore, set forth before your intellectual vision the main 
outlines of his philosophical edifice, and viewing it as 
a whole, we can then study how radically he has de- 
parted from the traditional Epistemology, Psychol- 
ogy, Ontology, Cosmology and Natural Theology 
that has come down to us embodied in the philosophy 
of the great medieval thinkers. 

The following, then, is a summary of his complete 
system: Descartes, as you may have observed, pro- 
fessed to have discovered his first true and certain 
item of knowledge by looking within himself. He ob= 
served that his own conscious state of doubt could not 
by an effort be doubted. And because he was abso- 
lutely certain that he doubted, he immediately arrived 
at the certain truth of his own existence, because 
doubt necessarily implies the existence of a doubter. 
Thus it was, that by knowing himself, he came for 
the first time in touch with objective reality. This 
first truth, “I think, therefore, I exist’, he set down 
as the foundation-stone of his system. 


50 CARTESIANISM 


On the other hand, when he looked out of himself 
through his senses, his intellect, or his reason, or when 
he consulted the testimony of witnesses, he despair- 
ingly confessed and professed that he could not know 
with certainty any objective reality outside and inde- 
pendent of himself. He positively doubted the ex- 
istence of all reality outside of himself. Real objects 
outside of himself seemed, he confessed, to exist. Of 
their seeming existence he was certain. But his cer- 
tainty stopped short with the mere “seeming”. “At 
all events, it is certain’, he says, “that I seem to see 
light, (I seem to) hear noise, and (I seem to) feel 
heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is 
properly called perceiving (sentire)”. . . . The best 
he can be certain of, then, is the seeming existence of 
objects outside of him, not the real existence of ob- 
jects in themselves. Descartes himself, at this stage 
in the construction of his system, stood alone in the 
universe as the only reality of which he was certain. 


Descartes, studying the character of the judgment, 
“T think, therefore, I exist”, asked himself, why is it 
that this truth is to me most certain? Because, he 
asserted, it is so clear and distinct. This characteristic 
of his own existence he then generalized and set up 
as the criterion, standard or test of all truth. There- 
fore, he argued, whatever idea is clear and distinct to 
me is true and certain. 


By the aid of this criterion he proceeded to advance 
his knowledge beyond that of his own existence, to- 
wards the acquisition of other truths which he called 
eternal, such as (a) “from nothing, nothing can come”, 
(b) “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not 
to be, at the same time, (c) “a cause ought at least to 
contain as much perfection as is contained in its ef- 
fect”, etc. Then, by the aid of the same criterion, he 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 51 


advanced to the knowledge of God’s existence, and 
lastly to the existence of external, material world. 

He proceeds thus: (1) Amongst the various ideas 
which I find within myself, there is the idea of God, 
as a Being of infinite perfection. Such an idea, he 
argues, could not come from myself, since I am an 
imperfect being and therefore finite. The cause, then, 
of this idea of an infinitely perfect God that is within 
me cannot come from myself. It must come from a 
being of infinite perfection, namely, God Himeelf, 
therefore God exists. (2) Furthermore, Descartes 
maintained that, the idea of God, being infinite, con- 
tains all perfections. But “existence” is a perfection. 
Therefore God exists. 

Having now arrived to his own satisfaction, at least, 
at the knowledge of God’s existence, who is a Being 
that is all-truthful and wise because perfect, he then 
argues from the truth of an all-true and wise God, to 
the certainty of the existence of the external, material 
world. Because, he says, we clearly and distinctly 
perceive matter distinct from our Ego and from God 
extended in three dimensions— length, breadth and 
depth. God, then, would be our deceiver, if notwith- 
standing our clear and distinct ideas of material 
things, if the external, material world did not really 
exist. But God, who is infinitely true and wise, could 
not deceive me. Therefore, the external world exists. 
Thus did Descartes win back from his original doubt 
the certainty, not only the certainty of his own exis- 
tence, and of the eternal truths mentioned above, but 
also of the existence of the material world. 

But our knowledge must not rest here. He has es- 
tablished his own existence, the existence of God, and 
that of the material world, but he does not yet know 
either his own essence or that of bodies outside of him. 
This question Descartes was obliged to answer, be- 


52 CARTESIANISM 


cause it is the part of philosophy to know the essences 
of things. 

Now, if we are to understand Descartes, we must 
carefully bear in mind, in the first place, that, in his 
system, the direct and immediate objects, which his 
cognitive faculties, his senses as well as his intellect 
become directly and immediately aware of in cogni- 
tion, are not objects that exist outside of himself, but 
his ideas within himself, something, therefore, subjec- 
tive and not objective. In other words, our ideas are 
the direct objects that immediately terminate all our 
first cognitions. And in the second place, that it is 
only when those ideas are clear and distinct, do the 
objects, which they seem to represent, truly and cer- 
tainly exist outside of us. Because, as he said, God 
placed in us an irresistible conviction that objects out- 
side of us, of which we have clear and distinct ideas, 
exist, and an all-truthful and wise God could not 
deceive us. 

Descartes then distinguishes three kinds of clear 
and distinct ideas within him, namely, the idea of swb- 
stance, the idea of attribute and the idea of mode or 
accident. The idea of “substance” he defines as the 
idea of “‘that which so exists that it is in need of noth- 
ing else for its existence”. An idea of a “mode or 
accident” he defines as “that which does not exist in 
itself, but in a substance, but which can be present or 
absent without destroying the idea of the substance’. 
An “attribute” he defines as “that without which the 
idea of substance, itself, would cease to exist’’. Hence 
a “mode or accident” may cease to exist without the 
idea of substance, in which it adheres, ceasing to exist. 
But if an “attribute” ceased to exist, then, the idea 
of the substance, of which it is an attribute, could not 
exist at all. The idea of “attribute” to the mind of 
Descartes enters into the very essence of the idea of 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 53 


“substance”, the idea of a “mode or accident” does 
not. 

Furnished, then, with those three clear and distinct 
ideas, he proceeds to establish the essence of body and 
of own Ego or “TIT”. 

Descartes now declares that bodies manifest them- 
selves to us by the qualities of figure, shape,. size, mo- 
tion, color, etc. But all those qualities may change 
and any special figure, shape, size, motion or color, 
etc., may cease to exist without destroying the idea of 
a body. They are merely “modes or accidents” of 
body. They come and go. But without extension, I 
cannot conceive body at all. Therefore, extension is 
a necessary and essential quality or “attribute” of 
corporeal substance. And because such an attribute 
manifests the essence of body, therefore Descartes 
maintained that the essence of a body consists in ea- 
tension alone. Since, then, a body is extension and only 
extension, a vacuum cannot exist, because a vacuum 
would be extension without a body. But extension is 
identical with a body, hence wherever extension is 
conceived, there is body. Consequently, since he con- 
ceived extension to be indefinite, if not infinite, so is 
matter indefinite, if not infinite, and can be infinitely 
divided. 

All changes in matter are only the result of local 
motion. Whence comes this motion? Motion cannot 
originate in matter, since matter is not extension and 
extension does not imply motion. In fact, he taught 
that matter was entirely inert and void of all activity. 
Therefore motion must have its origin from a source 
distinct from matter. Descartes, therefore, accounts 
for motion by saying that God endowed matter in 
the beginning with a certain quantity of motion. 
This original quantity of motion, imparted to matter 
in the beginning by God, is immutable. All bodies, 


54 CARTESIANISM. 


therefore, are merely extension; that is, length, 
breadth and depth in motion, like a machine. Hence 
comes the famous theory of Descartes regarding 
matter, which is known as Mechanism. All inorganic 
bodies, as well as plants, animals and the body of 
man are only machines (automatons) just like our 
clocks and watches,— merely matter endowed with 
motion. All the motions of the animals, which we 
are wont to interpret as the signs of life, even their 
cries and bellowings, their digestion and apparent 
sensations do not spring from any vital principle, 
but are merely automatic motions of their bodily 
machines. ‘““Give me matter and the laws of motion”, 
says Descartes, “and I build a universe exactly like 
the one that we behold, with skies, stars, sun, and 
earth, and on the earth minerals, plants and ani- 
_ mals, in short, everything that experience introduces 
to us, except the rational soul of man”. Descartes 
does not admit any vital principles or soul in animals, 
because, as we shall afterwards see, the essence of soul, 
according to him, consists of thought, and hence every 
soul is a “thinking thing’, immaterial and immortal, 
and endowed with free-will. But Descartes could not 
admit that animals are immortal, which he would be 
obliged to admit, did he admit they possessed a living 
principle, called soul. 

Let us now examine what Descartes considered the 
essence of his own “Ego” or I, which he established 
as existing, and placed as the basic truth and certainty 
of his philosophy. 

en Descartes, to his own satisfaction, had estab- 
lished, beyond any shadow of doubt, his own existence 
and called himself as we call ourselves, “I” or “Ego”, 
his next step was to investigate what this “I’’, this 
“Ego” is, what constitutes it, what is its nature, in a 
word, “What am I?” When I say “I”, do I mean 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 55 


my soul alone, or my body alone, or a composite being 
made up of the intimate union of both body and 
soul”? This question Descartes presumes to answer 
by the following course of reasoning: 


“In the next place”, he says, “I certainly exam- 
ined what I was and as I observed that I could sup- 
pose I had no body (he had not at this stage of his 
system established the existence of matter or body) 
and that there was no material world or any place 
that I might be; but that I could not, therefore, sup- 
~ pose that I was not; and that, on the contrary, from 
the very circumstance that I thought to doubt of the 
truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly fol- 
lowed that I was; while, on the other hand, if I had 
only ceased to think, although other objects which I 
had ever imagined, had been in reality existent, I 
would have not reason to believe that I eaisted; I 
thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole 
essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, 
that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is depen- 
dent on any material thing, so that ‘I’, that is to say 
the mind by which I am what I am, is plainly distinct 
from the body”. (Meth. IV.) 


This is a remarkable passage. It contains the ker- 
nel of Descartes’ psychology. It professes to answer 
the question, “What am I?”. That you may vividly 
grasp this Cartesian answer to the formidable ques- 
tion, “What am I?”, permit me to cull from this pas- 
sage its salient phrases: 


He says: “I, that is to say, the mind”. In this 
phrase he identifies “I”, “Ego”, with the mind, that 
is, with my soul or spirit. Hence it is by my soul 
alone I am what I am. The soul, then, the soul alone, 
is the man. The body is only an appendage of the real 
man, something distinct and extrinsic to the real “me” 


56 CARTESIANISM 


or “I” or “Ego”. To repeat once more Descartes’ 
own words: “I, that is to say the mind by which I 
am what I am, is plainly distinct from the body”. 
(Ibid.) The body, therefore, does not enter at all as 
a constituent factor into my being as a person, which 
each one gives expression to by the pronoun “I” or 
“Ego”. Were we all, then, devoted followers of the 
Cartesian doctrine, the meaning of the personal pro- 
noun “I” or “Ego” would be strictly limited and con- 
fined to each one’s soul or spirit or mind alone, to the 
complete exclusion of the body. Even if I had no 
body I would still be “I’’, because I would still be a 
soul. Hence, the disembodied souls of the dead are 
still, according to Descartes, complete substances. 
They could still give expression to their consciousness 
and say, in their own way, “I am I’. This account of 
what I am, is false, but why it is false, future criti- 
cism will show. Yet it may be justly said of Des- 
cartes, that he had nobly vindicated, in his own way, 
the existence of the soul as more certain than the ex- 
istence of the body, though in doing so, he irreparably 
destroyed the true and obvious nature of man or 
“Ego” by excluding the body as an essentially con- 
stituent element of a human being. Man is not a 
spirit or soul alone (the Spiritualistic theory) nor a 
body alone (the Materialistic theory) nor is man a 
combination of two complete substances, body and 
soul extrinsically accompanying each other (the ex- 
aggerated dualism of Descartes), but man, “Ego”, 
is composed of two incomplete substances, body and 
soul, intrinsically united so as to form a single com- 
posite substance (the Aristotelian and Scholastic 
doctrine). 

“What am I?” is one of the most vital questions for 
humanity. Men and women of all ages have been 
asking it. They are asking it wistfully to-day. 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 57 


Reviewing, at a glance, the history of modern 
thought, six chief answers have been given by differ- 
ent schools of philosophy to this fearful question: 

(1) In the first place, the most degraded answer 
is: “I am a body, matter alone”. I am one and the 
same stuff as the rugged mountain, the dust I tread 
upon, the flowers that bloom and fade. All my 
thoughts, my high ideals and aspirations, are at best 
only secretions of matter like honey distilled in the 
body of the bee. This is the answer of Materialists. 
They are with us to-day. They walk our streets; their 
materialism is at the basis of their moral, social, polit- 
ical and economic creeds. They are terribly in earnest 
to propagate their doctrine; they teach it to their chil- 
dren. The Socialism of Marx and Engels of Ger- 
many, now familiar throughout Europe, as well as in 
our own country, and the Bolshevism of Bakunin of 
Russia, are the nefarious growth of the materialistic 
answer which these new political and economic sys- 
tems give to the question, “What am I?” These mate- 
rialists are frankly atheistic, haters of God, immor- 
tality and all religion. Hear the words of Bakunin, 
the high-priest of Russian Bolshevism: ‘God is a 
corrosive poison which destroys and decomposes life, 
falsifies and kills it. Christianity is the impoverish- 
ment and the annihilation of humanity for the benefit 
of divinity”. (Cath. World, Dec. 1919.) Radical 
Evolutionists, as displayed in the exhibitions in our 
Museum of Natural History in this city, teach Mate- 
rialism. Descartes was not such as these. 

2) The next answer to the question, “What am 
I?”, though not explicitly, is yet implicitly just as de- 
grading. It is the answer of English Agnosticism and 
the disciples of Huxley, Herbert Spencer, etc. The 
Agnostic asks, “What am I?’, and with an air of 
supercilious scepticism, answers, ‘““We do not know”, 


58 CARTESIANISM 


This answer signifies, not merely temporary ignor- 
ance, which they may hope to surmount, but a know- 
nothingness which involves the positive and arrogant 
assertion, that it is beyond the power of the human 
mind to know “what I am”. And just because the 
ponderous intelligence of Protestant England has 
been groaning now for three hundred years, and has 
at last brought forth the mouse of Agnosticism, by 
proclaiming that it cannot know what man is or what 
God is, a number of would-be intellectuals, who have 
already lost their knowledge of, and faith in, God, 
worship, in order to find some philosophical ground 
for their irresponsibility, the tiny, dark mouse of 
Agnosticism, and proclaim to the world that they 
have concluded that God and man are unknowable, 
because whatever is supersensible is unknowable. We, 
over whom the Agnostics of course assume a lofty 
air of superiority, must adopt, forsooth, the same 
degrading fashion of know-nothingism. Hence, Ag- 
nosticism would, if it could, dragoon us all into utter 
ignorance, not only of what God is, but of what we 
ourselves are. No wonder, then, that the addicts of 
this philosophy have opened up a wide gap in the 
minds of men, through which every fantastic theory 
of morality, politics, and economics may rush in with 
impunity. Agnosticism is only a polite expression of 
stark atheism. Woe to the world if Atheistic or Ag- 
nostic governments dominate the nations: To know 
God and Him Whom He has sent — Christ, that is, 
Catholic Christianity, is the soul of a nation, and 
when that soul departs from it, then is the death of 
that nation at hand. 

Descartes, then, as we have seen, was not a material- 
ist; neither was he an agnostic. Indeed, his philoso- 
phy helped to stem the tide of materialism that swept 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 59 


over the world in the eighteenth and beginning of the 
nineteenth centuries. 


(3) The third answer to the vital question, ““What 
am I?’ has been given by the Spiritualistic Idealists. 
Their answer is the extreme opposite of the Material- 
ists. While the Materialists assert, “I am a body, 
matter alone’, the Idealists, or pure Spiritualists, 
advance the theory that “I am a soul, a pure spirit 
alone, plus its own conscious states or subjective mod- 
ifications. Since Idealists deny outright, or pretend, 
at least, that we cannot know matter, that is the only 
answer they give, and can give, to the question ““What 
am I?’ Whether Idealists, numerous as they profess 
to be, are sincere in giving this answer, we know not. 
There seemed to be only one sincere Idealist or Spir- 
itualist in the history of modern thought, the famous 
Irishman, Bishop Berkeley, Protestant Bishop of 
Cloyne, County Cork, who lived in the eighteenth 
century, about whose interesting character and career 
we shall have something to say later on. Descartes 
was not a pure Spiritualist. Though he taught “the 
Ego was soul or spirit alone”, he yet admitted the 
existence of our body as a companion at least insep- 
arable from the soul in this life. 


The curative practices and beliefs of the well-known 
devotees of Christian Science, or Eddyism, are based 
upon the theory of Spiritualistic Idealism. They 
answer “What am I?’ by affirming we are all pure 
spirits and ideas. Diseases are only zdeas of human 
spirits. Hence, if they can rid you of the idea that 
you are sick, by the force of natural suggestion or 
persuasion, they consequently rid you of the disease. 
Perhaps if many of the silly creatures who are de- 
ceived by Christian Science knew the foundation 
upon which it rests, the remnant left them of their 


60 CARTESIANISM 


common sense might deter them from embracing this 
modern superstition. 

(4) There is a fourth answer to the riddle, “What 
am I?” It is the solution of the Pantheists, who, as is 
obvious, may be either Idealistic or Materialistic. All 
Pantheists agree in this, that they teach, there is only 
one substance in all eaistence, and this single sub- 
stance they call God. To Pantheism, then, “I” or 
“vou” can have no individual, separate existence out- 
side this divine substance. It answers the question, 
“What am I?’, by asserting that we are all only 
phases or aspects of the Pantheistic divinity. “You” 
and “I” are but so many tiny wavelets on the great 
ocean of substance; we roll our little course, and sink 
to rise no more. Pantheism was taught in Harvard 
during the last generation by the late Professor 
Royce. Emerson was professedly Pantheistic. Many 
of the professors of our large universities to-day sub- 
scribe to this system. It is one of the last develop- 
ments of the Reformation. Professor Haldane of 
England has lately published a book in defense of 
Pantheism. 

Pantheism, under the name of Theosophy, which 
is of Eastern origin, has immigrated into San Fran- 
cisco, and into our other large cities, and is there prev- 
alent at present among some of the would-be intellec- 
tuals. Any system of philosophy that does not neces- 
sitate the existence of a personal God outside and in- 
dependent of the world as the supreme Author and 
Creator of all things, will inevitably lead to Panthe- 
ism. Descartes was not a Pantheist, though, as we 
shall see later on, his principles, in the philosophy of 
Spinoza, led to that withering doctrine. 

(5) The fifth curious answer to the question, “What 
am I?’, is that given by the Phenomenal Idealists. 
Since Phenomenal Idealists assert that the only ob- 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 61 


jects of knowledge that we can become aware of are 
subjective experiences alone, namely, subjective sen- 
sations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, mental states, 
of all sorts; that the substantial subject of those men- 
tal phenomena are unknowable, and that all objects 
outside and independent of subjective states are im- 
_ pervious to knowledge, they deny, therefore, the real- 
ity of all substances, both material and spiritual. The 
sphere of knowledge is thus strictly confined to a 
series of conscious phenomena. If, then, Phenomenal 
Idealists are asked, “What am I?”, they will prompt- 
ly answer: “a stream of consciousness and nothing 
more’. Subjective states follow one another like “so 
many beads without a string”. Man or “Ego” is a 
stream of sensations or feelings without anybody to 
feel them, a stream of thoughts without a thinker to 
think them. Man—“Ego’,, is a kind of unsubstan- 
tial, evanescent mist of ghostly conscious states apart 
from anybody who is conscious of them, “a phantas- 
magoria”’, as Huxley says, “on the back-ground of 
nothingness”. Descartes was nota Phenomenal Ideal- 
ist. He admitted a substantial soul or spirit. 

(6) The Scholastic doctrine, which we have stated 
above, is simply this: The soul is the form of the 
body. Man, therefore, is not a dual combination of 
two complete and companion substances, body and 
soul, as Descartes taught, but man consists of the sub- 
stantial union of two incomplete substances, body and 
soul, so as to form a single compound substance. We 
shall now resume the account of Descartes’ system. 

Descartes employed all his ingenuity to explain the 
union of soul and body, but his explanation is unsat- 
isfactory. He taught that the soul is united to the 
body in the “pineal gland”, where very refined par- 
ticles of blood, which he called “animal spirits”, act 
upon the soul, and the soul in turn reacts upon the 


62 CARTESIANISM 


animal spirits, and the motion thus caused in the “ani- 
mal spirits” moves the nerves and muscles. In this 
theory a union is set up not between substances, but 
between the actions of substances after the manner of 
two wheels of a machine. 

A striking peculiarity of Descartes’ psychology is 
that sensations and passion are experiences resident 
in the soul alone. Nevertheless, Descartes maintains 
they exist in the soul only so long as it is united to 
the body. He admitted, of course, the spirituality 
and immortality of the soul, and its endowment of 
free-will. 

Finally, the following are the salient features of 
Descartes’ theory of knowledge: He distinguished 
three classes of ideas: (1) innate, (2) adventitious 
and (8) factitious. All universal and necessary ideas, 
as being, substance, cause, axioms, God, etc., in fact, 
all ideas, through which we exercise our intelligent 
life, are innate. 

At first, Descartes taught that those innate ideas 
were “certain realities” impressed upon our souls by 
God. Later on, under the stress of controversy, he 
was driven to admit that those ideas were only poten- 
tially innate, that is, the soul had the power of form- 
ing them by its own native activity. It is through the 
medium of those innate ideas we know all things in- 
tellectually, because God, Who is the author of all 
things, both bodies and souls, endowed “‘us with those 
ideas to which realities correspond”. This undue em- 
phasis upon purely intellectual knowledge to the 
neglect of knowledge derived from sense-experiences, 
which is, according to Descartes, in no way a deter- 
mining cause in the formation of our intellectual 
ideas, is the reason why, in history, Descartes’ theory 
of knowledge is called “ewaggerated intellectualism”’. 
The only part which, according to Descartes, sense- 


ITS CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECT 63 


experience plays in arousing in the mind intellectual 
ideas is the part of an occasional cause. Knowledge 
becomes perfect in judgment, by which we predicate 
ideas of objects. But in order that we may predicate 
an idea of an object, an assent of the mind is required. 
Assent, however, Descartes makes an act of the will, 
not of the intellect. Hence, judgment is not an act of 
intellect, but of will. All error, therefore, proceeds 
from the will alone. Though man’s will ought to fol- 
low his intellect in order that his assents may be true, 
yet in God, Descartes strangely taught, that divine 
will decided what is true. Hence, if God should will 
the contrary or contradictory of what is now true, 
that contrary or contradictory would be true. 

Adventitious ideas are those which the mind gath- 
ers from sense-experience. They reveal to us only 
singular facts and the relations of bodies to ourselves, 
while factitious ideas, or ideas which are constructed 
by ourselves, are combinations formed either from in- 
nate, adventitious ideas or from both by our own vol- 
untary fancy. It cannot be too often emphasized that, 
in the theory of knowledge set forth by Descartes, the 
direct and immediate object both of intellect and sense 
is not reality as it is in itself apart from, and indepen- 
dent of, the idea of it, but rather ideas themselves. 
This theory, in the course of time, developed into 
Idealism, 





CuaAprtTer IV. 
DESCARTES 
CRITICAL EXAMINATION 


OTH the destructive and constructive exposi- . 
tion of Descartes’ system, as you may have 
noticed, have set forth and popularized a cer- 

tain number of fundamental principles that have pro- 
foundly influenced and even revolutionized philoso- 
phy in every department from Descartes’ time to the 
present day. This revolution was, of course, directed 
immediately against that philosophy which the intel- 
lectual leaders of the Catholic Church had built up 
during the Middle Ages. If the principles of Des- 
cartes are philosophically sound and true, then Scho- 
lasticism as a system is false. It will be interesting, 
then, to submit the fundamental principles of Des- 
cartes’ philosophy to a critical examination of reason, 
and arrive at a just estimate of their validity. The 
philosophical world has yet to prove, no matter how 
they may despise it, that the “philosophia perennis” 
of Scholasticism is substantially either antiquated or 
false. By bringing Descartes’ principles into conflict 
with the corresponding principles of Scholasticism, 
we hope to make manifest the unreasonableness of 
the former and the sound rationality of the latter. If 
we wish to deepen our knowledge of our own philoso- 
phy, no more virile and profitable intellectual exer- 
cise than this could be imagined. We shall never 
know the soundness of our own system until we see 
it struggle in successful conflict with other systems. 


66 CARTESIANISM 


Two methods are available to obtain a judicial esti- 
mate of Descartes’ philosophy, which the so-called 
intellectual world has universally heralded as the glo- 
rious dawn-light of modern thought. 

In the first place, we may form a just estimate of 
Descartes’ thought by studying the different systems 
that eventually developed in history as the outcome 
of his principles. By the fruit of his system you shall 
know it. This evolution of Cartesian principles into 
the Occasionalism of Geulincex, the Ontologism of 
Malebranche, the Pantheism of Spinoza and the sys- 
tem of Pre-Established Harmony of Leibnitz, will 
form the subjects of our future study. As the logical 
offspring of Cartesianism, the character of those fan- 
tastic systems would be sufficient, as we shall see, to 
justify the rejection of the parent-philosophy from 
which they sprang. 

A more direct method of arriving at a just estimate 
of Descartes’ system would be to submit his basic 
principles to direct criticism. And then, not only to 
show destructively, on grounds of rational evidence, 
that they are either inconsistent, or contradictory, and 
therefore illogical, but also to set forth constructively 
the true principle in each case that is consonant with 
reason. This is the method we shall at first adopt in 
the Criticism of Descartes’ principles. 


I. Now, at the very threshold of Descartes’ system, 
the first topic that challenges our critical investiga- 
tion is his initial attitude of doubt, not only towards 
the conclusions of all philosophers up to his time, but 
also towards all the knowledge which he himself had 
previously acquired. This doubt was real and posi- 
tive. “I am constrained”, he says, “at last to avow 
that there is nothing of all I formerly believed to be 
true, of which it is impossible to doubt, and that not 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 67 


through thoughtlessness or levity, but from cogent 
and maturely considered reasons”. (Medit. I.) Re- 
call that he even conjured up the fantastic possibility 
of a “malignant demon” who had the power to deceive 
all his philosophical predecessors, and of which he 
himself may have been the victim. This positive doubt 
was certainly all-embracing and therefore universal. 


(1) Now, in the first place, it seems obvious that 
when he made use of his reason to supply arguments 
to overthrow the trustworthiness of the same reason, 
he put trust in his reason to discover reliable argu- 
ments, and as the result of those arguments he aban- 
doned that trust in his own reason. He consequently 
trusted and did not trust his own reason at the same 
time, and consequently contradicted himself. 


(2) Besides, one of the arguments which he set 
forth for abandoning all trust in his reason was be- 
cause this faculty sometimes delivers to us false con- 
clusions which we take for truth. But how could he 
distinguish what is false from what is true except by 
his reason? He trusted his reason, then, because he 
admitted it could distinguish what is false from what 
is true, and in the same breath, did not trust his rea- 
son because it sometimes accepts what is false for 
what is true. This is the same as saying my reason is 
not trustworthy because it is trustworthy, which is a 
manifest contradiction. 


(3) Furthermore, it was only through the exercise 
of his reason, which is the same faculty as intellectual 
consciousness, that he could arrive at the certainty of 
the fact of his own existence expressed in the famous 
formula: “I think, therefore, I exist’. But if Des- 
cartes had already made up his mind to discredit as 
positively doubtful all the deliverances of his reason 
or of his intellectual consciousness, which is the same 


68 CARTESIANISM 


faculty, how could he, then, consistently trust his rea- 
son, that is, his consciousness, when it revealed to him 
his own existence? 

No doubt Descartes would say that among all other 
deliverances of reason, this awareness of his own ex- 
istence was the one lonely exception that forced itself 
upon him, in the earlier stages of his investigation, as 
an undeniable certainty. Why did he not, then, sus- 
pend his judgment and refrain from forming the the- 
ory that the deliverances of reason were to be wniver- 
sally and positively doubted, until he had heard this 
witness of consciousness (i.é€., reason) bearing incon- 
testable testimony to reason’s trustworthiness? Descar- 
tes, as a judge, then, of the trustworthiness of reason, 
seemed to have condemned this faculty as positively 
untrustworthy before all the facts of the case were 
examined and before all the evidence was placed be- 
fore the court of enquiry. 

Hence, it seems that Descartes, in setting up the 
theory that reason is to be wniversally and positively 
doubted, contradicted himself, because he subse- 
quently admitted that there was at least one fact, 
namely, his own existence, to which reason (7. é., con- 
sciousness) testified, and its testimony, in that case, 
was not to be doubted. Hence, according to Des- 
cartes’ own confession, his universal positive doubt 
regarding all knowledge was not universal at all. 

When Descartes declared, “I think’, that is, “I 
am doubting”, what was he thinking of, or about 
what was he doubting? It is impossible to think or 
to doubt without thinking of, or doubting about some- 
thing. When Descartes set forth the grounds for the 
establishment of the fact of his own existence, he did 
not explicitly state or explain the object of his think- 
ing or doubting. Yet, we can infer from another prin- 
ciple of his system, namely, that the direct and imme- 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 69 


diate objects of all perception, whether intellectual 
or otherwise, were ideas, that is, something sub jective 
or psychical, not something really objective or actual 
in the sense that this something is outside, and inde- 
pendent of, the subjective idea. When Descartes, 
then, said, “I think, z.e., I doubt’, he was thinking 
of or doubting about an idea, the only direct and im- 
mediate object of all thought recognized by him. He 
did not doubt that he perceived a subjective idea, that 
he was certain of through consciousness. When he 
asserted, then, “I think, 7.¢., I doubt”, what was he 
doubting about? He doubted not the idea, but, 
whether or not that idea had any counterpart in the 
actual existence of material objects outside and inde- 
pendently of the idea. He doubted the actual exis- 
tence of every being outside of the idea of it. And 
when he said, “therefore, I am, that is, I exist”, what 
he again knew for certain was his idea of his existence. 
How, then, could he consistently make the transition 
from the idea of his existence to his actual existence, 
in the face of doubting the validity of the like transi- 
tion from the idea that material things exist outside 
of him to their actual existence? If he doubtingly 
balked at the difficulty of “transcending” his idea of 
the existence of everything outside of him, he should 
have consistently, doubtingly balked also at “trans- 
cending” the idea of his own existence and kept on 
doubting about his actual existence. Why did he ig- 
nore the difficulty of “transcendence” in the one case, 
and not in the other? The difficulty, if it is a difficulty, 
is as valid in the one case as in the other. The idea of 
the actual existence of all outer objects did indeed 
involve the idea that he existed. That is all. Des- 
cartes should, then, consistently conclude not that I 
actually exist, but that I have an idea that I exist, 
that is, I exist ideally. In a word, Descartes’ princi- 


70 CARTESIANISM 


ples of knowledge would lead to the conclusion, “I 
am an idea” and nothing more. It would seem, as we 
shall examine later on, that Descartes’ method of es- 
tablishing what he professed to be his own actual exis- 
tence is open to the same objections as the method he 
adopted in proving the existence of God. If the latter 
is an invalid transition from the ideal to the actual 
order, so is the former. 

Descartes himself seems to have corroborated the 
correctness of the above analysis of the method he em- 
ployed for the establishment of his own existence only 
as an idea-existence. Because he subsequently, as we 
shall see, made thought, that is, idea, — for an idea is 
thought —the essence of soul or spirit, which is the 
man. If manis, then, only an idea, he has no substantial 
actual existence, unless he makes an idea substantial. 
And if man is only an idea or thought, then the only 
legitimate philosophy is Phenomenal Idealism. 

(4) Lastly, when Descartes relegated to the region 
of positive and real doubt all self-evident principles, 
as we have seen in the destructive exposition of his 
system, he included in that positive doubt even the 
objective certainty of the principle of contradic- 
tion (“it is impossible for anything to be and not to 
be at the same time and in the same respect”). While 
in positive doubt, then, regarding this principle, he 
was illogical in asserting as certain the truth of the 
fact, “I think, therefore, I exist’. Because, owing: to 
his real doubt of the principle of contradiction, it be- 
comes also doubtful whether it is not possible to think 
and not-think at the same time, or whether it is not 
possible to be and not-be at the same time.- By ex- 
plicitly doubting positively the principle of contra- 
diction he could never know anything. 

II. The next step in the development of Descartes’ 
system is the assured establishment of the fact of his 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 71 


own existence, “I think, therefore, I exist”, a fact 
which is implicit in every act of knowledge. By teach- 
ing this fact, Descartes professed to have emerged 
from the darkness of real doubt and to have at last 
grasped a reality that is absolutely true and certain. 
What judgment may we justly form as to the result 
of a critical examination of Descartes’ effort to estab- 
lish his own existence? 

The truth and certainty of this first fact of knowl- 
edge are admitted by all sound systems of philosophy. 
Centuries before Descartes’ pronouncement, St. 
Augustine (De Civit. Dei, XI, 26) insisted upon its 
certainty and St. Thomas taught it. (“Nullus potest 
cogitare se non esse cum assensu; in hoc enim quid 
cogitat percipi se esse.’ De Verit. Q. X., Art. 12.) 
It is not, therefore, the evident truth and certainty 
of our own objective existence revealed to us by con- 
sciousness that we challenge. What we do challenge 
is, that Descartes, irrespective of the contradictions 
which we have before pointed out, could not consis- 
tently and logically admit the truth and certainty of 
his own existence, and at the same time hold as posi- 
tively doubtful other propositions quite as evident as 
this fundamental fact — “I think, therefore, I exist’. 
“How do I know’, he said, “that I am not also de- 
ceived each time I add together two and three, or 
number the sides of a square, or form some judgment 
still more simple, if more simple, indeed, could be 
imagined?” (Med. I.) If Descartes admits he may 
be deceived in forming judgments of the aforesaid 
truths, then he ought also to confess that he may be 
deceived in forming the judgment, “I think, there- 
fore, I exist’. The evidence for the truth and cer- 
tainty of the above-mentioned judgments is just as 
cogent and compelling as the evidence for the judg- 
ment, “I think, therefore, I exist’. 


72 CARTESIANISM 


But a good Cartesian would, no doubt, protest 
against this line of argument, and say that “even if 
I should make an effort to cast out the judgment ‘I 
think (I doubt), therefore, I exist’, by the door of 
doubt, it would still persist in returning again by the 
door of truth and certainty”. But this feature of per- 
sisting to be true and certain is also characteristic of 
“the principle of contradiction”, as well as many 
other axiomatic principles, and yet Descartes really 
doubted them before he professed to have established 
his own existence. Therefore, logically he ought to 
have doubted his own existence. 

But a loyal Cartesian may still advance to the de- 
fense of his master, and say,— “what Descartes 
really doubted in the case of the principle of contra- 
diction, as well as regards other so-called self-evident 
principles, was not that those principles seemed to 
be subjectively certain, but rather whether they 
had an application to objective reality, just as 
he did not doubt that he ‘seemed’ to see and feel 
material objects, although he doubted whether mate- 
rial objects had any objective ‘reality’. Well, then, 
for the same reason, he ought to have admitted only 
that ‘he seemed to eaist’, but doubt whether he ex- 
isted as an objective reality”. The reason why he 
claimed he was not certain, in the case of sense-knowl- 
edge, that objects really existed outside and inde- 
pendent of the subjective act of perception, expressed 
by the phrase, “I seem to see objects’, though he was 
quite certain of the mere “seeming to see’’, was, that 
he could not clearly explain how the mind could 
transcend itself and grasp an object outside of itself. 
But that same reason holds good in the case of know- 
ing with certainty his own existence. Because “I 
think” is likewise a subjective act or happening, and 
yet Descartes seems to have no difficulty in admitting 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 73 


that it transcends itself. In and through this subjec- 
tive act of thinking, he grasps the reality of his own 
existence. If, then, Descartes was justified in saying, 
“TI seem to see objects”, but doubts whether he sees 
real objects, he ought, in like manner, say —“I seem 
to exist, but I am not certain that I do”. The diffi- 
culty of transcendence, if it is a difficulty, holds good 
in both cases. 


III. Descartes made consciousness, to the exclusion 
of all other cognitive faculties, the starting-point of 
all truth and certainty. Now, since consciousness, by 
its very nature, is a faculty which can only perceive 
the acts or states which affect us subjectively, as our 
own, and cannot directly of itself perceive any objects 
outside and independent of us, he concluded that the 
objects which we directly and immediately perceive 
are our subjective ideas, meaning, as Descartes does 
by “ideas”, subjective sensations, subjective super- 
sensible concepts, states of consciousness. Conscious- 
ness could directly perceive no other objects. This 
theory afterwards, in the development of philosophy, 
opened the way to Idealism. Descartes, himself, when 
he had fully developed his system, was not an ideal- 
ist. He professed Realism. He based his conviction 
that material things existed outside and indepen- 
dently of himself, upon the existence of an all-truth- 
ful God, Who could not be deceived or deceive us. 
He was a “reasoned realist”. We shall afterwards 
examine whether Descartes was logically justified in 
professing Realism. 

Idealism of one kind or other, and it has taken a 
multiplicity of forms, has been, outside of Scholasti- 
cism, which has always remained a philosophy of Real- 
ism, the fashionable philosophy with modern thinkers. 
since Descartes’ time, and continues in vogue at the: 


74 CARTESIANISM 


present day. This prevalence of Idealism in modern 
thought has been emphasized in the following brief 
statement by Professor Case of Oxford, who is not 
a scholastic writer. Professor Case writes: “Psycho- 
logical idealism began with the supposition of Des- 
cartes that all the immediate objects of knowledge 
are ideas. From Descartes, it passed to Locke and 
Berkeley. But with Hume it changed its terms from 
ideas to impressions. Kant preferred phenomena; 
Mill, sensations. The most usual terms of the present 
day are sensations, feelings, psychical phenomena, 
and states of consciousness. But the hypothesis has 
not changed its essence, though the idealists have 
changed their terms. Verbum, non animwm mutant. 
They at least agree that all sensible data are psychical 
objects of some kind or other”. (Physical Realism, 
p. 15.) 

This “seeming” or phenomenal, not the real, Ego, 
is all that Kant and Hume professed to know. 

That we may understand, then, why it is that the 
philosophy of Idealism dominates our great non- 
Catholic universities at the present day, and approves 
itself to the minds of our modern non-Catholic lead- 
ers of thought, it will be useful and interesting to 
trace this prevalence of Idealism to the epistemolog- 
ical principles set forth by Descartes. Those Carte- 
sian principles are: 

That consciousness is the starting point of all 
knowledge. This is the root principle, and from it are 
easily inferred the two other principles of Idealism, 
to wit: 

(1) That consequently the immediate and direct 
objects of knowledge are, therefore, not objects out- 
side and independent of ourselves as is vulgarly 
thought, but modifications or changes within our- 
selves, — that is, within our souls, since Descartes in- 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 75 


terpreted “ourselves” as souls or spirits alone. Those 
internal or subjective changes the Idealists designate 
by several different names — ideas, impressions, phe- 
nomena, sensations, feelings, psychical facts, states 
of consciousness. The objects which we know directly 
and immediately, then, and which supply us with the 
foundation of our knowledge, are of such stuff as 
ideas are made of. Indeed, if consciousness is the fac- 
ulty which supplies our first objects of knowledge, 
those objects could be no other than those above men- 
tioned. Because it is the very nature of conscious- 
ness to perceive directly only those experiences which 
affect us internally, as our own. Consciousness, as 
such, cannot grasp an object outside of ourselves. 

Besides, have you ever seriously reflected upon the 
nature of knowledge? Have you ever realized that 
knowledge is something unique, something that 
stands alone, and that cannot be classified under any 
other category in our experience? Permit me, then, to 
explain the inherent difficulties of interpreting knowl- 
edge as the ordinary person interprets it, when he is 
persuaded that his knowledge grasps external objects, 
difficulties which have led so many intellectuals to go 
over to the camp of the Idealists. 

In the first place, an act of perception, whether of 
sense or intellect, is an act of the mind, and it is un- 
deniable that this act, by which, for instance, I grasp 
the knowledge of yonder City Hall, remains within 
my mind. It is what is called an immanent act. I 
know whatever I know by acts of the senses, of sim- 
ple apprehension, judgment and reasoning. All those 
mental processes are acts of the soul, and therefore 
remain within the soul as so many psychical acci- 
dents, distinct, indeed, from the soul, but still inhering 
in the soul. 

The great problem, then, of knowledge is, how can 


76 CARTESIANISM 


an act of the soul, or of a faculty of the soul, grasp 
an external object which is outside the soul, and is 
where the soul is not? How can the soul travel, as 
it were, outside of itself and lay hold of objects by an 
act that remains within itself? The object that we 
grasp in knowledge is certainly not physically within 

the soul. How, then, does it lay hold of it and know 
- it? This difficulty in reference to knowledge is called 
the difficulty of transcendence. And overcome by this 
difficulty, which they say is insurmountable, the Ideal- 
ists formulate their third principle, which is a logical 
consequence of making consciousness the starting- 
point of knowledge, and assert that, 

(2) The mind or soul cannot transcend itself, and, 
therefore, cannot know anything except what is inti- 
mately present within itself. And objects as they ea- 
ist outside of the soul are not certainly, in their own 
reality, present within it. But you may say that ideas 
are images or representations within the mind of ob- 
jects outside the mind, and when we know the repre- 
sentations, ideas, or images, by consciousness, then 
we know objects outside represented by our ideas, 
just as we see our face in a mirror. Reflect, that if 
this is the way we know objects outside of us, it fol- 
lows that we never perceive the objects as they exist 
in themselves. We only perceive their representa- 
tions, ideas, or images. And since we cannot know 
objects directly and immediately in themselves, how 
could we ever know that our subjective representa- 
tions, ideas, or images of objects really resemble the 
objects themselves? The only way we could become 
certain that our mental representations, or ideas, 
truly resemble objects outside of us, would be to com- 
pare the representation with the objects themselves. 
But that we could never do, because we know only 
the subjective representations, but not the objects 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 77 


themselves. Hence, if we make consciousness the 
starting-point of knowledge, we shall be, like maniacs, 
ever doomed to stare upon our own subjective ideas. 
It would be utterly impossible to get outside of our- 
selves or know anything outside of ourselves. We 
would be driven to the universally-condemned posi- 
tion of solipsism. 

What answer does Scholasticism give to those prin- 
ciples of Idealism? 

(1) Descartes asserted that intellectual conscious- 
ness is the starting-point of all knowledge. Conscious- 
ness in his system must mean intellectual conscious- 
ness. Because, for him, the spirit or soul is the man, 
and the consciousness that is rooted in spirit can only 
be intellectual. Hence, he would maintain that our 
intellectual or rational life is developed before our 
sensitive life, —a doctrine that is opposed to all ex- 
perience. Hence, it is the teaching of Scholasticism 
that sense knowledge precedes intellectual knowledge. 
“Nihil est in intellectu nisi prius fuerit aliquo modo in 
sensu’, is received as axiomatic by scholasticism. We 
first look outward, then inward, and lastly upward, 
whereas, according to the topsy-turvyism of Descar- 
tes, we first look inward (consciousness) , then wpward 
(to God), and lastly owtward (to material things). 

(2) Scholasticism denies outright that the direct 
and immediate objects of our cognitive faculties, 
whether of sense or intellect, are psychical or subjec- 
tive modifications of ourselves, and teaches, on the 
contrary, that the direct and immediate objects of 
knowledge are objects that are outside and indepen- 
dent of the act of perception or thought by means of 
which they are perceived. The object of perception 
or thought is not the perception itself or the thought 
itself considered as a mere modification of ourselves 
as a subject. 


78 CARTESIANISM 


Ueberweg, who did not profess be a scholastic in 
philosophy, subscribed to this teaching— He says: 
“But the complexes of sensation (2. é., the psychical 
changes within us that accompany the perception of 
outward objects), though alone immediately in our 
consciousness, are not therefore necessarily the imme- 
diate object of sense perception, to wit, if they be at 
all not the object but the means of it; our attention, 
in the case of complexes of sensation, is directed en- 
tirely to the external things manifested to us through 
them; the external thing is that which I see, handle, 
perceive. 

“The complexes of sensation are, as such, late in 
becoming the object of psychological reflection”. 
(Annot. to Berkeley, p. 347.) 

In the language of Scholasticism, the subjective 
factor of sense or intellect is not that which is directly 
and immediately known, but the subjective factor, 
though in itself not directly known, still becomes the 
means by which the external reality is directly known. 
An orange, for example, is not a collection of psy- 
chical or subjective feelings or sensations. This is 
the primitive and untutored instincts which a child 
manifests: He stretches out his little hands for the 
orange. Why should he stretch his hand outward for 
the orange, if his primitive knowledge told him it was 
a collection of subjective sensations within him? It is 
no answer to say, with the Idealists, that the orange 
is only an outward projection of our inner sensations. 
The human race possesses an irresistible conviction 
that the orange is really existing outside of us. The 
burden of proof to show that this conviction is an illu- 
sion rests, therefore, with the Idealists. And no Ideal- 
ist has ever succeeded in proving this conviction delu- 
sory. 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 79 


(3) What of the difficulty of “transcendence”, the 
stumbling block of Idealists? How, they say, can an 
act of knowledge, which undoubtedly remains within 
the mind, go outside the mind to reach an external 
object? An act of a sense faculty or of the intellect 
cannot, they say, transcend itself, so as to grasp an 
object outside itself. 

Scholasticism answers thus: It is certain that what 
we know is, in some way, in our minds. Our friend, 
for instance, about whom we are thinking, is in our 
mind and present to it in some way. But it is equally 
certain that our friend, as he objectively exists, is not 
in our minds, any more than the real mountain we 
know is in our mind. The object we know is in our 
mind in this way: There is, in our mind, a mental re- 
production or representation of the real object. It is 
not this representation or mental reproduction of the 
real object that is, however, perceived, directly and 
immediately, but is the means by which the real ob- 
ject is directly and immediately perceived. This men- 
tal representation of the object in the mind is called 
“intentional”, for by means of it the mind tends to- 
ward the object and grasps it as the term of our 
knowledge. The mind does, indeed, transcend itself 
in its acts of knowledge, not, however, physically, but 
cogmtively. 


IV. Descartes set up as a criterion, test or meas- 
ure of truth, “clearness and distinctness of ideas’. 
But he also felt that he could not put absolute trust 
in this criterion, until he had proved that it came from 
God, who could not deceive us. Descartes’ complete 
criterion or standard of truth was, therefore, not 
“clear and distinct ideas” alone, but “clearness and 
distinctness of ideas” backed by the existence of an 
all-truthful God. “Without a knowledge of these 


80 CARTESIANISM 


two truths”, he says, (1) “that God exists and (2) 
cannot deceive, I don’t see how I can be certain of 
anything”. (Med. III.) We shall be obliged to quar- 
rel critically with this criterion. 

In the first place, to make “clearness and distinct- 
ness of ideas’, that is, to locate the mark of logical 
truth as resident within subjective ideas, and make 
of this mark a premise from which we may argue 
from ideas thus characterized by clearness and dis- 
tinctness to objects beyond and independent of them, 
would be destructive of what all sane thinkers 
throughout the ages understand by logical truth or 
the truth of knowledge. 

The classical definition of “logical truth” or the 
truth of thought given by St. Thomas is, “the con- 
formity of thought with reality” (conformitas intel- 
lectus cum re), wherein reality is the measure of 
thought and not thought the measure of reality. 
Hence, truth necessarily presupposes a subject know- 
ing and an object known. The mark or criterion of 
truth must, therefore, be sought for, either in the 
subject knowing or in the object known. But should 
we seek for and profess to find it in the subject know- 
ing or in ideas or thought, which are modifications of 
the knowing subject, the inevitable consequence 
would be, that thought or ideas would then become 
the measure of reality, not reality the measure of 
thought or ideas. In other words, our thoughts would 
then be true because we clearly and distinctly think 
them true. But it is obvious that it does not follow 
that, just because we think that our thoughts or ideas 
are true, that they, therefore, measure up to the real- 
ity. We may have quite clear and distinct ideas to 
which no reality corresponds. For ages men had a 
clear and distinct idea that the sun moved around the 
earth. Yet every school boy knows now, that to that 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 81 


clear and distinct idea no reality corresponded. That 
idea or thought, though clearer and more distinct than 
the thought or idea that the earth actually moves 
around the sun, was false. We have met people who 
had very clear and distinct ideas of fairies and ghosts, 
when the objects of those ideas were mere illusions of 
their phantasy. Men may justify the most extrava- 
gant wickedness in morals and the most repulsive 
errors in religion by saying that they have a clear and 
distinct idea of the rightness of their actions, or of 
their religious convictions. To make clear and dis- 
tinct ideas the measure of truth would be to adopt a 
relative standard of truth and certainty. 

Does it not stand to reason, then, that we are to 
look for the standard, the criterion, the mark of truth, 
in the objective reality that is known, not in our 
thoughts or ideas? Because it is the objective reality 
known, which is the measure and the stamp of our 
thoughts or ideas, in order that they may conform to 
reality. We do not look for the measure or mark that 
is impressed on wax in the wax itself, but in the stamp 
or signet-ring that imparts its impression to the wax. 
It is in the object or reality known, then, and not in 
the subject knowing, that the ultimate criterion of 
logical truth or the truth of human knowledge is 
found. That criterion is called objective evidence. 

_ Now, since objective evidence is the genuine cri- 
terion of truth, and not clearness and distinctness of 
ideas, we conclude that the fundamental truth of Des- 
eartes’ philosophy, to wit, his famous “I think, there- 
fore, I exist”, though undoubtedly true and certain 
in every sound system of philosophy, — a truth which 
St. Augustine has established centuries before Des- 
cartes, — yet, this principle is not true precisely, be- 
cause, as Descartes maintained, it conveyed to his 
mind a clear and distinct idea or thought, but because 


82 CARTESIANISM 


it was objectively evident. And because this funda- 
mental fact, “I think, therefore, I exist’, is objec- 
tively evident, it is true, and does convey to our minds 
a clear and distinct idea. Hence, on the understand- 
ing that “clearness and distinctness of ideas’ is the 
effect of objective evidence, then “clearness and dis- 
tinctness” would be a criterion of truth, but not the 
ultimate criterion. 

From the standpoint of this false subjective cri- 
terion of Descartes, whose spirit has, since its author’s 
day, capitivated non-Catholic intellectuals, we can 
judge at their true value many opinions that are prev- 
alent in our own time. Descartes’ criterion of truth 
tends to give philosophical respectability to the prin- 
ciple of private judgment. That principle formulates 
itself thus—I think clearly and distinctly that my 
Opinion on this or that question is true, therefore, it 
is true just because I think so. I bring myself to 
think, for instance, that divorce is true; to think this 
or that interpretation of the Bible is true; to think 
that the state and not parents has the first right to 
educate children; to think that birth control is true; 
to think that individuals have no right to private 
property; to think that state policy as independent 
of God and of the moral law, etc., is true. Therefore, 
they are true just because I think them true. No, the 
true principle is, not that something is true just be- 
cause I think it true, but rather I think it true because 
it is in itself really true. And the ultimate reason why 
a judgment or reasoning is in reality true, is, because 
it is objectively evident. In other words, if you allow 
me to coin terms, logical truth is not ideo-centric, but 
onto-centric. Any man who makes thought or ideas 
the measure of the test of truth, plays the ostrich. He 
sticks his head in the sand of his own subjectivity or 
private judgment, and because he does not conceive 


CRITICAL EXAMINATION 83 


and perceive things as they are, says they do not exist. 
Private judgment leads to Idealism and ultimately to 
universal scepticism. It leads to dissensions, bigotry 
and persecution in society. For bitter conflicts will 
always arise in society to determine which set of pri- 
vate judgments is to prevail. 

In the second place, Descartes himself, as we have 
already indicated, did not place absolute trust in 
clearness and distinctness of ideas, to offset the fan- 
tastic possibility of a “malignant demon who may use 
all his artifices to deceive him”. He was compelled to 
establish the existence and veracity of God. Hence, 
he confesses that “without a knowledge of these two 
truths, that God exists and cannot deceive, I don’t see 
how I can be certain of anything”. But how could he 
arrive at the knowledge of these two truths? Only by 
demonstration or proof. But demonstration, to be 
valid, must be based on premises that are already ac- 
knowledged to be true and certain. Now, true and 
certain premises were not available for Descartes, 
because the only test or criterion of their truth and 
certainty was their clearness and distinctness. But 
this criterion Descartes distrusted. “Because”, he 
said, “until I know that God exists, I don’t see how I 
can ever be certain of anything’. The premises, there- 
fore, which he could alone make use of to prove God’s 
existence, were doubtful, and from doubtful premises 
only doubtful conclusions can be drawn. Hence, the 
conclusion, ““God exists and cannot deceive me’, de- 
rived as it was from doubtful premises, was itself 
doubtful. Consequently, since his method of proving 
God’s existence failed, Descartes, by his own confes- 
sion, could never know anything for certain. The out- 
come of Descartes’ false criterion of truth is, conse- 
quently, universal scepticism. 

In closing our examination of Descartes’ Episte- 


84 CARTESYANISM 


mology, it may be well to summarize the main prin- 
ciples of his theory of knowledge, and contrast them 
with the principles that appeal to sound reason. 


DESCARTES 


Initial attitude of— 

. To doubt seriously and posi- 
tively of all that he “‘for- 
merly believed to be true.” 


. To make consciousness the 
starting point of all knowl- 
edge. 

. Hence, the direct, immediate 
and first objects of knowl- 
edge are ideas. 


. Unless I know that a good 
and veracious God exists, I 
cannot know anything for 
certain. 


. The criterion of truth and 
certainty is clearness and 
distinctness of ideas plus the 
knowledge of a good and ve- 
racious God. 


. The certain existence of any 
reality, outside and inde- 
pendent of the Ego, cannot 
be known except by a pro- 
cess of reasoning or demon- 
stration. 


SOUND REASON 
Initial attitude of— 


. To accept as true and cer- 


tain whatever your intellect 
vouches to be immediately 
evident. 


. To make the senses the 


starting point of all knowl- 
edge. 


. The direct, immediate and 


first objects of knowledge 
are material objects re- 
vealed by the senses. 


. I can know many things for 


certain, antecedently to my 
knowledge of God’s exis- 
tence. If I cannot know 
anything for certain before 
I know God, then I cannot 
know God for certain. 


. The criterion of truth and 


certainty is objective evi- 
dence. 


. The certain existence of 


many objective realities, out- 
side and independent of the 
Ego or self, can be immedi- 
ately known by judgment 
based upon the report of the 
external senses and many 
objective truths, by the im- 
mediate avouchments of our 
intellects, determined by ob- 
jective evidence. 


CHAPTER V. 
DESCARTES 
criticism (Contd.) 


We have yet to examine critically the fundamental 
doctrines of Descartes’ 


(1) Psychology, 
(2) Natural Theology, 
(3) and Cosmology. 


(1) Having established to his satisfaction his own 
existence, Descartes asked the significant question, 
“What am 1?” and answered, “I am a substance 
whose whole essence or nature consists only in think- 
ing, —so that I, that is to say, the mind, by which 
I am what I am, is plainly distinct from the body”. 
(Method, p. IV.) Descartes, then, teaches that “I” 
am mind or spirit only; that the essence of mind is 
thought or thinking; that the body, whose existence 
at this stage of his system was not yet established, 
was not an essential part of the “I” or the man; that 
the body, therefore, was not substantially united to 
the soul, but merely a companion or extrinsic appen- 
dage to the soul, and thus a separate and complete 
substance distinct from the “I”. By thus cleaving the 
“JT”, that is, man, into two complete and independent 
substances, and thus destroying man’s substantial 
unity, Descartes inaugurated what is known in the 
history of philosophy as “I'he exaggerated dualism 
of Descartes’, a doctrine which, as a sad heritage, he 
left to future philosophers to develop; nor did they 


86 CARTESIANISM 


fail to derive from it, some Occasionalism, some On- 
tologism, some Materialism, some Spiritualism, some 
Pantheism. 

Now, we shall endeavor to show that when Des- 
cartes professed to conclude from the testimony of his 
consciousness that man is a spirit or soul only, he did 
not interpret or read aright the complete data of that 
testimony. What Descartes seemed to have done was, 
to draw an arbitrary circle around some of the data of 
consciousness, namely, his intellectual or supersensi- 
ble operations, and say, “thus far shall the testimony 
of consciousness go, and no farther”. Of course, if 
Descartes could establish that the only data which 
consciousness directly and immediately reveals are our 
own intellectual operations and their objects, then he 
would be logical in concluding, at least according to 
the principles of Scholasticism, that man was spirit or 
soul alone. It is only spirit or soul alone that could be 
the subject of intellectual operations. 

But consciousness obviously reveals to us with equal 
certainty many other operations and experiences be- 
sides intellectual operations. Consciousness testifies 
to each of us also, that we are the subject of sensuous 
perceptions, of aches and pains, of hunger, thirst, dis- 
comforts and comforts of body, and some of those at 
least, a headache or lumbago, for example, reveal that 
“I”, as subject of those feelings, am spatially ew- 
tended. Many of the data of consciousness, therefore, 
carry with them a feeling of bodily eatension, and, con- 
sequently, that “I’’, as the subject of those data, am a 
conscious, living, corporeal substance. It would seem 
to be just as reasonable to judge that “I am a mere 
animal”, because consciousness reveals to me that I 
am the subject of various bodily and extended sensa- 
tions, and feelings, as to judge that “I am a spirit 
merely, because consciousness reveals to me that I am 


CRITICISM 87 


the subject of intellectual operations. Both of those 
false judgments would be based on a partial interpre- 
tation of the complete data of consciousness. 

Descartes, of course, at the stage of his system 
wherein he established his own existence, would deny, 
owing to his positive doubt, that he was certain of the 
existence of any material being, and, consequently, 
that our consciousness of our own extended, sensuous 
operations was a valid basis for judging that we were 
corporeal substances. For the existence of our own 
bodies was embraced in the universal doubt of Des- 
cartes regarding the existence of all material beings. 
Hence, Descartes could say, as he did say, at this 
point in the development of his system, “I could sup- 
pose (i.é., doubt) that I had no body and that there 
was no world or any place that I might be’. We 
answer that the the testimony of consciousness is just 
as peremptory in revealing to us our sensuous, ex- 
tended experience as our own, as is its testimony in 
revealing to us our own intellectual operations are our 
own. And if Descartes doubted consciousness, testi- 
fying to the existence of our own body as the subject 
of our sensuous and extended feelings, so he ought 
likewise to doubt of his substantial spirit, as Hume 
afterwards did, as the subject of his “thought” or 
“thinking”. 

Furthermore, if the clear consciousness of our sen- 
suous and extended feelings does not reveal to us our 
own bodies as the subject of those feelings, then, even 
should Descartes successfully demonstrate, as he 
afterwards professed to do, the existence of matter 
or bodies, he could never know that our bodies were 
our own as distinct from other external bodies. In 
Descartes’ system, our own bodies would be as alien 
and external to ourselves as the stones beneath our 
feet, and his doctrine that “man was spirit alone” 


88 CARTESIANISM 


would anticipate, so far as man is concerned, the 
spiritualism of Leibnitz and Berkeley. 

Descartes not only endeavored to establish his posi- 
tion that “man was spirit or soul alone”, by eliminat- 
ing from the testimony of consciousness our various 
sensuous and ewtended feelings, but he also attempted 
to demonstrate the same doctrine of the purely spirit- 
ual nature of man from two premises. The first prem- 
ise was his fundamental and first principle, “I think, 
therefore, I exist’. The second premise which he used 
to reinforce the first, was a doubtful supposition, 
namely, “I could swppose (i.e., doubt) I had no body 
and that there was no world nor place in which I 
might be”. The introduction of this principle, which 
was inspired by his positive doubt of the existence of 
all corporeal things, and hence of his own body, would 
leave man denuded of his body, and hence establish 
him as a spirit alone, if Descartes could prove to a 
certainty that body does not enter into the composi- 
tion of man as an essential, substantial element. But 
Descartes does not say, “I can prove that I have no 
body”. What he said was, “I could suppose (i.é., 
doubt) I had no body”. 

Now any tyro in logic knows that a conclusion, 
namely, “I am a spirit alone”, derived from one cer- 
tain premise, “I think, therefore, I exist’, and from 
another premise which confessedly is a doubtful sup- 
position, “I could suppose I had no body”, will par- 
take of the nature of the weaker premise, and, there- 
fore, the conclusion that “I am soul or spirit alone” is 
also a dubious supposition, and, therefore, devoid of 
all truth and certainty. 

Descartes’. conclusion should have been, “I may or 
may not be a spirit”, or, whether I am a spirit or not 
are dubious alternatives. In categorically conclud- 
ing from the premises employed, that he was a spirit 


CRITICISM 89 


only, he certainly outstepped the logical implications 
of + premises. (Cf. Coffey, Epistemology, V. ILI., 
p- 9. 

It is strange perversion, too, of Logic, to find Des- 
cartes now making use of his reason and trusting it, 
though he had never established the trustworthiness 
of that reason which, antecedently to his examination 
of his knowledge, he wholly and really distrusted. 
What value can all his conclusions now have, since 
they are arrived at by means of his already discredited 
faculty of reason? 


But Descartes would undoubtedly contend that he 
did not distrust reason as such, and he certainly did 
not distrust his own individual reason. In fact, he 
had an overweening confidence in his own reason. 
What he did distrust, he would say, was all the deliv- 
erances of all other men’s reason throughout the ages 
up to the day that Descartes’ reason began to func- 
tion. But it is reasonable to conclude that if the fac- 
ulty of reason in all men throughout the ages never 
arrived at a true and certain conclusion in philosoph- 
ical matters, then human reason must be, in its nature, 
intrinsically vitiated. We would naturally conclude, 
for instance, that a pen with which we could never 
write, or an auto that could never move, were intrinsi- 
cally vitiated. Because we judge of the intrinsic 
nature of things by their actions. If human reason 
never functioned aright throughout so many ages un- 
til Descartes’ reason appeared as the extraordinary 
exception, then we would be led to conclude that Des- 
cartes was not human, but a God-like superman, a 
claim that would be rather arrogant to make. 


To return to the question, ‘““What am I?’, we have 
shown that Descartes’ conclusion that “I” meant soul 
or spirit only is invalid. 


90 CARTESIANISM 


The true answer to the question, ““What am I?”, is 
not the spiritualistic answer of Descartes, which in- 
terprets the “I” as soul or spirit only, nor the mate- 
rialistic answer that “I”? am body only, nor that “I” 
am a combination of the two separate, independent 
substances existing merely in companionship, but that 
“I” am one single substance made up of two incom- 
plete substances, body and soul substantially united. 

Now, that we may understand the peculiar psychol- 
ogy of Descartes, that is, his account of the nature of 
the soul, and the origin of all our ideas, we must divide 
the whole matter into the separate problems which he 
professed to answer. We can never understand the 
theories of knowledge that are influencing men’s 
minds to-day, unless we understand Descartes — the 
Father of Modern Psychology. 

What, then, is the essence or nature of the soul, 
and what is the essence or nature of matter or body 
according to Descartes, and what are the consequences 
that logically flow from his teaching? Descartes made 
actual thought the essence of the soul. This theory, 
of course, involves the consequence that the soul can- 
not, for even a moment, cease from exercising actual 
thought. A cessation of actual thought would imply 
the cessation of the soul’s existence. 

Now, can it be successfully defended on psycholog- 
ical grounds that the soul must always actually think? 
As long as the soul exists in our present state united 
to the body, all intellectual thought or thinking de- 
pends extrinsically upon the activity of the imagina- 
tion or phantasy. The phantasy, because sensuous, is 
an organic faculty. It is obvious, then, that the organ 
of the phantasy may be impaired or paralyzed, and 
its activity may be thereby interrupted. But any in- 
terruption of the activity of the phantasy would also 
bring about cessation of actual, intellectual thought 


CRITICISM 91 


of the soul, and yet the soul may continue in existence. 

Even were it established that the soul is de facto 
always actively thinking, it would not follow that 
active thought is the essence of the human soul. To 
establish this latter theory, the Cartesians maintain 
that the essence of the human soul is constituted by 
the fact that it is always actually conscious of itself. 
When the Cartesians assert, therefore, that actual 
thought, which they identify with actual conscious- 
ness, is the essence of the soul, they mean by “actual 
thought” or “actual consciousness”, not the “thought” 
or “consciousness” that has for its immediate and pri- 
mary object the actually present operations of intel- 
lect and will, which are so many phenomenal acci- 
dents issuing from the activity of the soul, and 
through which or by means of which, because those 
phenomenal accidents are bound up concretely with 
the substance of the soul, we come to know the soul 
itself as something that merely eaists. In other words, 
the Cartesians contend that they do not attain to the 
knowledge of the soul’s existence through means of 
the soul’s phenomenal activities, which mediate or in- 
tervene between “thought” or “consciousness” and 
the soul itself. What the Cartesians mean by 
“thought” or “consciousness” is the “thought” that 
has for its immediate and primary object the nude 
soul itself, and by “consciousness,” that substantial 
consciousness by which the soul directly and immedi- 
ately attains the knowledge not only to the mere ex- 
istence of soul itself independently of its operations, 
but the immediate and direct knowledge of the essence 
or nature of the nude, substantial soul. 

Descartes himself, when he formulated his famous 
first principle, “I think, therefore, I exist’, never 
pointed out what object he was thinking of. But his 
successors, the Cartesians, analyzing his doctrine that 


92 CARTESIANISM 


“thought”, that is, “consciousness”, was the essence 
of the soul, came to the conclusion that the direct 
object of “thought” in which he placed the essence of 
the soul must be the very nature or essence of the soul 
itself and not its operations, which are accidental to 
the soul. Because they very logically reasoned that if 
the soul cannot directly exercise its activity of think- 
ing except upon objects that are not the pure soul, 
but, as in the case of consciousness, upon objects that 
are accidental to the soul, to wit, its operations, then 
it follows that thought or consciousness cannot be the 
essence of the soul. That “thought” may be the es- 
sence of soul, then, the nude soul must perpetually 
exercise its thought. And since thought must have an 
object, that object must be the pure soul itself. Now, 
it cannot be reasonably maintained that through 
“thought”, or consciousness”, we can immediately 
and directly come to know the bare, nude essence of 
the human soul. And if it is false to say that we can 
attain immediately and directly, without the inter- 
vention of the phenomenal operations of the soul, a 
knowledge of the pure, nude soul and its nature, as 
a thinking thing, then it follows that “thought” or 
consciousness” is not the essence of the human soul. 

We shall set forth some of the main arguments to 
prove that the soul is incapable of knowing its own 
pure, bare self directly and immediately, indepen- 
dently of our knowledge of every intervening soul- 
action. 

In the first place, if we could know our soul im- 
mediately and directly through its own essence, then it 
would follow that we should be able to form positive 
and proper concepts of purely spiritual beings. But 
experience tells us that we cannot form positive and 
proper concepts of the essence of any spiritual being. 
We become aware of the essences of spiritual beings 


CRITICISM 93 


through a process of reasoning, that is, mediately, 
and the concepts which we form of what is character- 
istic of them, and which differentiates them from 
material beings, are all negative and analogical con- 
cepts. 

In the second place, the doctrine of the Carte- 
sians, explained above, would lead logically to the 
conclusion that the union of the soul and body would 
be unnecessary because purposeless. Because, then, 
the soul could essentially and independently of its 
union with the body know an object, that is, the 
spiritual soul, which is pre-eminently nobler than all 
the material objects which we are capable of knowing 
through the agency of the senses. And if we could 
know our soul in this manner, then we could also 
know God and many other supersensible objects in- 
dependently of all ministrations of the senses, and, 
therefore, independently of the soul’s union with 
body. The union of soul and body would, therefore, 
be useless. Yet, such a union exists, and since we must 
assume that it was brought about with wisdom, its 
purpose can only be to contribute to the perfection 
of the higher faculties in man. | 

On the other hand, Descartes taught that the es- 
sence of matter or body consists wholly in “extension”, 
that is, in length, breadth, and depth. Consequently, 
matter or body, according to Descartes, is essentially 
inert, inactive, dormant, incapable of doing anything 
or being the efficient cause of anything. The only 
activity it possesses comes to it from the outside, 
namely, from a certain amount of local motion im- 
parted to dead matter in the beginning by God, and 
this amount of motion in the whole universe of matter 
never changes. Motion, then, is not inherent in mat- 
ter, but is only an extrinsic push given to matter, just 
like the motion of a machine. Descartes then looked 


94 CARTESIANISM 


upon vegetables and animals, and even the human 
body, as matter, pure and simple, without any inher- 
ent principle of life. He classified the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms as belonging to the same kind of 
matter as the mineral world. Hence he explained all 
the changes that take place in the mineral, vegetable, 
animal world, and in the human body, by motion ex- 
trinsically imparted by God to the matter that com- 
pose them. Hence, you can understand why he called 
all of them machines or “automatons”, like our 
watches or children’s toys. Even vegetables, animals, 
and the body of man are not really living; they are 
as dormant and dead as minerals are. The circulation 
of the blood, digestion, breathing, the cries of the ani- 
mals, their movements, the singing of the birds, all 
our own bodily activities which we ascribe to the prin- 
ciple of life are, to Descartes, all the effect of mechan- 
ical motion. Outside of souls or spirits, all other be- 
ings, which we imagine live, are so many phono- 
graphs, whose apparent activities are the result of 
mechanical motion of the universe. Such a philosophy 
is known as “the philosophy of mechanism”. In oppo- 
sition to the doctrine of Descartes, which declares that 
matter is intrinsically and essentially inert, because 
extension, which he falsely assumed to be the essence 
of matter, is by its nature inert, sound philosophy and 
science proclaim that matter is intrinsically active. 
In other words, we assert the proposition that — 


The corporeal substances of this world are 
true efficient causes and not merely occa- 
sional causes as the Cartesians maintain. 


In answer to the question whether corporeal sub- 
stances are endowed with intrinsic activity or are, in 
other words, true efficient causes, three theories have 
been prevalent in the history of philosophy: 


CRITICISM 95 


(a) The Stoics taught that all activity of bodies 
was not to be ascribed to matter itself, but to an in- 
visible agency which pervades the visible world, and 
which they called the “soul of the world’. Akin to 
this theory is that of the Arabian philosophers who 
taught that all the changes in this visible world were 
brought about through the agency of inferior in- 
telligent and celestial beings. Newman, in his youth, 
fancied that the angels were the efficient causes of all 
corporeal changes. 

(b) The Cartesian theory has already been ex- 
plained. 

(c) The prevailing teaching of Scholasticism, 
which declares that corporeal substances are endowed 
with real activity, and are, therefore, the proximate 
efficient causes of all the changes which we observe 
in this world. We do not enter here the question of 
miracles. 

Proofs: (1) The Cartesians admit, of course, with 
the exception of Spinoza, the existence of the Creator 
as an infinitely intelligent Being. 

Now we observe that all living beings are furnished 
with organs of different kinds and of admirably dif- 
ferent and delicate structure. If these organs were 
not so many instruments destined to be exercised by 
living beings in the performance of different activi- 
ties, then they would be wseless and created for no 
purpose. But it would be derogatory to infinite in- 
telligence to create anything useless and purposeless. 
Therefore, animals and living beings are not mere 
“automatons”. 

(2) Regarding the activity of inorganic matter, all 
scientists are unanimously agreed that matter is en- 
dowed with inherent activity. The force of gravita- 
tion, as set forth by Newton, would discredit the the- 
ory of the inactivity of matter. 


96 CARTESIANISM 


We can now readily understand the false, though 
logical, consequence of those Cartesian doctrines in 
the sphere of psychology. Some of those false conse- 
quences will be apparent in the answer which Des- 
cartes gave to the problems — 


(1) of the union of the soul and body, 
(2) and of the origin of all our knowledge. 


Descartes, arguing logically, let us admit, from 
false principles, opened wide a chasm between the 
soul and body of man, over which he vainly endeav- 
ored to build a bridge of union. He saparated out- 
right the soul and body of man and left that sepa- 
ration yawning to-day. He attempted an explanation 
to bring them into unity. He failed and left to future 
thinkers the famous problem of the “exaggerated 
dualism of Descartes’, a doctrine which consists both 
in the utter separation of soul and body, and the im- 
possibility of any interaction between them. This 
“exaggerated dualism” was the logical consequence o 
the following Cartesian principles — 


(1) that “I” was the soul, as something entirel 
distinct from the body. 

(2) that the essence of the soul was thought, and 
the essence of the body was extension, and 
since a thinking thing and an extended thing 
are two heterogeneous substances, they could 
never be united together to form one sub- 
stance, nor could one react on the other. An 
extended thing that is wholly inert could not 
act upon a purely thinking substance. 


How, then, did Descartes explain the rise of knowl- 
edge, that is, both intellectual and sensuous knowl- 
edge? Whence came his ideas of intellect and his sen- 
sations? To understand Descartes’ explanation of 
knowledge, we must divest ourselves, for the time be- 


CRITICISM 97 


ing, of the explanation of knowledge which Aristotle 
and the Schoolmen had made familiar in Psychology. 
The Aristotelian and Scholastic explanation main- 
tains that all our knowledge, even intellectual ideas, 
begin in sense-knowledge. Hence the principle, 
“Nihil est in intellectu nist pruis fuerit aliquo modo 
in sensu’, has been received as axiomatic by the 
Schoolmen. Descartes repudiated that principle. 
That principle supposes that bodies or matter, in- 
cluding our own body, can act upon our senses and 
make an impression upon them. The Scholastics 
maintain besides that our senses are faculties that 
do not emerge from the pure soul or spirit only, 
but have for their subject a material organ animated 
by the soul. Sense faculties, then, are not rooted in 
the body alone, or in the soul alone, but in a single 
principle made up of body and soul. 

Now, Descartes, on the contrary, taught that both 
the intellect as a faculty and the senses as faculties 
emerged from the soul alone and are faculties of the 
soul alone. They are both spiritual faculties, or, 
rather, he did not distinguish the cognitive faculties, 
whether of a sense or intellect, from the pure soul. 
Every activity, then, which we call cognitive, are 
functions of the soul alone — sense perception, imag- 
ination, pure intellection, as well as our non-cognitive 
functions — will-action, feelings, emotions, and pas- 
sions. In the production of all those functions the 
body did not enter as a factor at all. It was a dead, 
inert substance that could not act upon soul. Recall 
that even animals had no sense-knowledge, because 
they were not, like man, souls or spirits. 

As a consequence of those principles, Descartes 
was obliged to teach that all intellectual ideas, and all 
sensations or sense-knowledge, had their birth within 
the soul alone, and were completed and perfected 


98 CARTESIANISM 


within the soul, independently of any determination or 
action upon the soul by matter. Briefly, the soul was 
mother of all cognition or knowledge without a 
father, that is, knowledge sprang up in the soul, some- 
how, without the latter receiving any impression from 
matter, as a determining cause of knowledge. 

Hence, Descartes, to account for knowledge, in- 
vented innate ideas. All our purely intellectual knowl- 
edge is inborn in the soul alone. Truly, he also added 
what he called adventitious ideas, which came from 
the outside or from matter. But those adventitious 
ideas did not come from matter, in the sense that mat- 
ter acted in any way as an efficient determining cause 
upon the soul, but only as an occasion. Descartes’ ex- 
planation of the origin of those adventitious ideas is 
one of the most obscure and weakest parts of his psy- 
chology. He endeavored to explain their rise in the 
soul thus: He attributed to the body of man what 
he called “animal spirits”. Those animal spirits were 
subject to motion. They were not animate, because 
the body wherein they moved was not animated. Yet 
other bodies could act upon those animal spirits, and 
move them, because both the mover and the moved 
were in both cases matter. When those “animal spir- 
its” were then moved in the body in a certain way, 
God took occasion of their movements to arouse 
within the soul certain corresponding ideas. ‘Those 
ideas were adventitious, then, in contrast to his al- 
ready existing innate ideas, but they were not adven- 
titious, inasmuch as they came from an outside mate- 
rial cause, but only from an outside material occasion. 

He also admitted factitious ideas, Those are easily 
explained, because they are only the combination of 
either innate or adventitious ideas or of both. 

You can now easily understand that, on Descartes’ 
principles, material objects had nothing to do with 


CRITICISM 99 


the making or the origin of our ideas of them in the 
mind, except as occasional, not as efficient causes. 
You can also appreciate why it was that the only 
direct and immediate objects of Descartes’ knowl- 
edge were the ideas locked within his own soul. The 
cognitive activity of his soul expressed in thought 
was completely cut off from external objects. Look- 
ing at his ideas, he saw that they represented objects, 
as everybody’s ideas do, but he could not know 
whether those objects which they represented really 
existed as they appeared. For aught he could tell, as 
Huxley says, they may be “an orderly phantasma- 
goria”’, mere ghosts of objects “in the background of 
nothingness”. He could contemplate his ideas and 
thoughts imprisoned in his own soul, but he could not 
attain to the reality of existing objects outside himself. 
How, then, did he come to know material objects 
outside and independent of himself? He ultimately 
professed to know them, but how? 

He attempted to reason to their actual existence. 
For this purpose, he essayed to prove the existence of 
God. Having arrived at the knowledge of God’s ex- 
istence, who was all-truthful, he then reasoned that, 
since he had an unconquerable conviction or persua- 
sion that bodies did exist, because clear and distinct 
ideas represented them to him, God, who was all- 
wise and truthful, could not endow him with this un- 
conquerable persuasion unless bodies really existed. 
Otherwise, God would not be an all-truthful being, 
but a deceiver. 

Did he succeed in proving the existence of God? 
This question brings us finally to a critical examina- 
tion of Descartes’ proof for God’s existence. 

First proof: He possessed, he said, an idea of God 
in his soul, an innate idea. The character of this idea 
was such that it involved all perfections. Now 


100 CARTESIANISM 


amongst other perfections which that idea contained 
in its comprehension was Existence, because it is a 
perfection to exist. Therefore, God exists. 

What are we to think of this argument? There is 
obviously in this argument the fallacy of the injusti- 
fiable transition from the ideal order to the real order. 
Every conclusion of reasoning must be of the same 
nature as the premises from which it is derived. Grant 
that Descartes had an idea of God in his soul. It was 
only an idea. All its perfections were ideas. The idea 
of existence was, indeed, involved in the idea of God. 
But that idea of existence was still only an idea. The 
only conclusion, then, that Descartes could derive 
from the idea of God is that his idea of God con- 
tained the idea of His existence. Therefore, he should 
have concluded that the idea of God’s existence is a 
fact, but not His actual and real existence. To say 
that God actually exists because I have an innate idea 
of God which involves the idea of God’s existence is 
to confound the ideal order with the actual or real 
order. 

Second argument: I have, he said, an idea of God. 
That idea is infinite. Objects outside of me could not 
form that idea in my mind, nor could I form it by my 
own power within me, because this infinite idea of 
God, as an effect in my soul, could not be produced 
by any finite cause. But I myself am finite and every 
other cause is finite. The cause that produces some- 
thing as an effect-must possess as much perfection as 
the effect. No other cause is adequate in its perfec- 
tions to produce this infinite idea in me except God 
Himself. Therefore, God exists. 

The fallaciousness of this argument is as obvious 
as that of the first. 

Professor Case expresses this argument in syllo- 
gistic form, thus — 


CRITICISM 101 


More reality cannot be produced by less. 

But the idea of God has more objective reality 
than the actual reality of any finite substance. 

Therefore, the idea of God cannot be produced 
by any finite substance, but must be received 
from God Himself. 

Therefore, God, as the cause of this idea, exists. 


The major is true. The minor is false, because the 
objective reality of an idea is always less real and less 
perfect than the actual reality of the thinker, and, 
therefore, can be produced by him. God, as He exists, 
has more reality than an existing man, it is true. The 
idea of God has more reality than the idea of man. 
But an actually existing man has more reality than 
his own idea of God. We can, therefore, retort on 
Descartes his own argument: 


The less real can be produced by the more real. 

The idea of God has less reality than the thinker. 

Therefore, the idea of God can be produced by 
the man who thinks it. 


Descartes’ third argument for the existence of God 
would be valid in our philosophy. But in Descartes’ — 
system the argument is invalid because of other false 
principles involved in that system. 


The argument is the ordinary “a posteriori” argu- 
ment for God’s existence. I am an existing being. I 
know I am imperfect and finite. While I know IL 
exist, I know also that I may not exist. I am, there- 
fore, a contingent being. I must be caused, then, not 
by another contingent being, because that latter be- 
ing would demand another cause. I must, therefore, 
be caused by a necessary Being whose essence is His 
existence and endowed with infinite perfections. This 
argument is fully elaborated in Natural Theology. 


102 CARTESIANISM 


But for Descartes it would be invalid, if for no other 
reason than his memorable statement, “I don’t see 
how I can be certain of anything until I know these 
two truths, that God exists and cannot deceive’. If 
he could know nothing for certain until he knew 
God existed, how could he know, during the process 
of proving God’s existence, that his argument was 
true and certain? 

One more doctrine of Descartes’ system remains 
for criticism. He teaches that the essence of matter 
is extension — length, breadth, and depth. Now, we 
can conceive what is known as a vacuum. We can sup- 
pose that the intervening space between two bodies 
may be absolutely emptied by the evacuation of all 
that exists therein. Still, ewtension would remain in 
the vacuum. According to Descartes, that mere ex- 
tension would be a body, because the essence of body 
is extension. But the conceived supposition is that in 
a vacuum there is no body, but extension alone. 
Hence, extension can be conceived as existing with- 
out a body. But that conception would be impossible 
if body were extension. Hence, we conclude that body 
is not extension. Hence, extension cannot be the 
essence of a body. 


CuaApter VI. 
OCCASION ALISM 


Descartes’ writing made so profound and lasting 
an impression upon his age that his principles inau- 
gurated a revolution in philosophical thought parallel 
to the revolution which the principles of Luther and 
the Protestant Reformation brought about in relig- 
ious thought. So fascinating was his influence that 
his words were accepted by his disciples almost as 
those of one who was inspired. Descartes was not, 
however, the complete and adequate cause of the rev- 
olution in thought of which he is now accredited to 
be the father and founder. Were the minds of men 
in his day not prepared by a growing opposition 
towards Scholasticism, engendered by the false prin- 
ciples of the Renaissance and the rising Reformation 
(Luther died 1546), his writings may have fallen 
still-born upon an uninterested world. Descartes was 
as much the product of the Scepticism (witness Mon- 
taigne) of his age as his age was, in its thought and 
tendencies, the product of Descartes. Just as Spir- 
itism is popular in our times, not so much on account 
of the inherent value of the spiritistic revelations, but 
rather because a considerable part of the Protestant 
world, owing to its loss of Christian faith, is prepared 
to accept and cling to any substitute for Christianity, 
however extravagant. Men and women must have, 
by an impelling instinct of human nature, a religion 
of some kind; so must men and women have a phil- 
osophy of some kind. 


104 CARTESIANISM 


Descartes has been one of those rare geniuses who has 
cast into the furrows of human thought certain seed- 
principles, which, enthusiastically cherished and culti- 
vated as they have been, by his disciples and succes- 
sors, have deeply influenced the speculation of mod- 
ern thinkers for the last three hundred years; nor have 
these Cartesian principles yet spent all their destruc- 
tive force. It would not be fair, however, to judge 
Descartes’ character by his principles and teachings. 
Men are sometimes better than their principles. This 
was the case with Descartes. He himself was a pious 
and loyal Catholic, but because he broke faith with 
Scholasticism in order to set philosophy, as he thought, 
on a more satisfactory basis, successive thinkers — 
eagerly wrested his principles to the prejudice and 
destruction of Catholic doctrine, so that the Catholic 
Church was obliged to place on the Index his writings, 
in 1663, sixty-seven years after his death. The teach- 
ing of Descartes’ doctrines was prohibited in the uni- 
versities of France by many royal decrees; several of 
the Dutch universities also prohibited Cartesianism. 
Descartes’ teachings then met with strong opposition 
from Rome, France and Holland. Orthodox Protes- 
tant clergymen, and especially the J esuits, made 
every effort to suppress it. 

Opposition, however, seemed to have only increased 
the devotion of Descartes’ admirers and disciples to 
his principles. Bossuet and Fenelon and many 
learned priests of the Oratory, pre-eminently “Pere 
_ Malbranche, whose system we shall see later on, be- 
came eager Cartesians. Among the Jansenists who 
were zealous propagators of Cartesianism were 
Arnauld, Nicole and Pascal. It was, however, the 
universities of Utrecht and Leyden in Holland that 
became the official homes of Cartesianism. Those dis- 
ciples of Descartes did not, however, merely propa- 


OCCASIONALISM 105 


gate their master’s doctrines as they came from the 
mind of Descartes. They modified his teachings and 
gave a new development to his principles. The most 
famous of those developments of Cartesian principles 
are now known in the history of thought as — 
(1) The Occasionalism of Arnold Geulinex (1625- 
1669), 

(2) The Ontologism of Malebranche (1638-1715), 

(3) The Pantheism of Baruch Spinoza (1632- 
1677), 

(4) The Pre-Established Harmony of Leibnitz 
(1646-1716). 

Before entering into the exposition of the first of 
those systems, Occasionalism, we wish to repel the 
calumny of calling Descartes “the Luther of Philoso- 
phy”, which is so frequently repeated in histories of 
philosophy. 

Whatever may have been the errors of Descartes, 
it is a vile calumny, propagated through the ages, to 
say that Descartes did not respect the authority of 
the Catholic Church. In repelling the calumny, then, 
of calling Descartes “the Luther of Philosophy”, his 
own writings are decisive witnesses. Permit me to 
give some quotations: 

Before entering into his philosophical researches, 
the first rule he lays down for the guidance of his life 
is, “To obey the laws and customs of my country, ad- 
hering firmly to the faith in which, by the grace of 
God, I had been educated from my childhood.” 
(Meth. III.) 

In another passage he says: “The truths of faith 
have ever occupied the first place in my belief.” 
(Meth. I11.) 

Again among the two hundred and seven princi- 
ples which he lays down in his treatise, The Principles 
of Philosophy, he concludes with this: 


. 106 CARTESIANISM 


“However, I submit all my opinions to the author- 
ity of the Church”, and continues: 

“Nevertheless, lest I should presume too far, I af- 
firm nothing, but submit all these opinions to the 
authority of the Church and the judgment of the more 
sage.” 

In the face of these clear expressions of Descartes’ 
mind no one should be seduced into the belief that, 
from a religious point of view, there was any sympathy 
or affinity or shadow of likeness between Descartes 
and Luther. Such a supposition would be grievously 
injurious to the memory of Descartes who, as a loyal 
Catholic, would have shrunk from the thought of 
openly rebelling against the authority of the Catholic 
Church. There is no trait in his character which has 
anything in common with the insubordination and 
turbulence of Luther. 

_ Were it true that Descartes had flung out the stan- 

dard of revolt against the Catholic Church as Luther 
did, a modern English historian of philosophy,’ 
George Henry Lewis, the Agnostic husband of the 
famous “George Elliot”, would never have taunted 
him with timidity and servility. Just because Des- 
cartes was professedly a Catholic, Lewis belittles his 
character by saying: “Descartes was a great thinker; 
but having said this, we have almost exhausted the 
praise we can bestow upon him as a man. In disposi- 
tion he was timid to servility”. To Lewis, then, all 
intelligent Catholics are cowards because they do not 
apostacize. On that principle Satan would be Lewis’s 
greatest hero. This tendency of prejudiced minds to 
call the virtues of their neighbors vices is as old as 
Horace, and as new as the present-day bitter invec- 
tives of one class of Americans against the loyalty 
and Americanism of another class of their fellow 
citizens. 


OCCASIONALISM 107 


It is true, however, that the successors of Descartes 
interpreted his system as favoring “Rationalism”. In 
a true sense, every reasonable man is a Rationalist, 
that is, he recognizes reason as one of the means of 
acquiring truth. Modern Rationalism is something 
quite different. The usually accepted meaning of 
Rationalism now is that the human reason is the sole 
source and final test of all truth. It proclaims the in- 
dependence or autonomy of reason as the natural and 
only means to all such knowledge and wisdom as man 
can achieve. Rationalism, therefore, claims that 
human reason is competent to discover and define 
religious truth without supernatural aid or divine 
revelation. “The complete independence or autonomy 
of reason is, indeed, the offspring of Protestantism”, 
says Paulsen, and continues, “to me it is beyond doubt 
that the fundamental tendency of primitive Protes- 
tantism has here been carried out in all clearness — 
Luther, too, found in the heart of the individual the 
unfailing source of truth”. (Cf. Donat, Freedom of 
Science, p. 88.) Rationalism, then, leaves no room 
for faith in the divine word, much less for mystery. 
It would feign regard doubtful or false what divine 
revelation proclaims certain and true. Modern Ration- 
alism is only another name for naturalism, because 
it rejects all knowledge and belief in the supernatural 
as mysticism and illusion. Rationalism or Naturalism 
- would, then, leave no room for divine faith and mys- 
teries. 

The following principle of Descartes, namely, “My 
first rule is never to accept anything as true, unless 
I evidently know it to be such” (Method II.), gave 
some color to the accusation that Descartes was a 
Rationalist in the sense just described. May we not, 
however, interpret this rule to apply only to naturally 
acquired knowledge, and the other quotations as wit- 


108 CARTESIANISM 


nesses to the fact that he accepted truths supernatu- 
rally revealed, and respected unconditionally the 
authority of the Catholic Church. 

We shall now address ourselves to the exposition 
of the first system which developed in history from 
the principles of Descartes. This system is known in 
philosophy as “Occasionalism”, and the philosopher 
most prominently associated with its development was 
Arnold Geulinex. 

In the first place, who was Geulincx? 

Arnold Geulinex was born in Antwerp, Belgium 
(1625). He was 25 years of age, then, when Des- 
cartes died. An ardent disciple of Descartes, he was 
a student and afterwards Professor in the University 
of Lyon. At this period of his life he was a Catholic 
priest and member of the Oratory of Jesus. In the 
University of Lyon he studied philosophy and medi- 
cine, took his doctor’s degree, and for twelve years 
lectured in philosophy in his Alma Mater. He was 
obliged to leave his University, very likely on account 
of his curious philosophical views. The Jesuits, of 
course, are blamed for his expulsion from the Uni- 
versity. If the Jesuits never existed, any Catholic 
University would force him to quit. Columbia Uni- 
versity a short time ago forced out some of its pro- 
fessors for the same reason. But Mrs. Murray But- 
ler being, I believe, a Catholic, may be a Jesuit in dis- 
guise. The unfortunate Geulincx then apostatized 
and became a Calvinist, adopted the religion of Puri- 
tanism, the most extreme form of Protestantism, 
which Edmund Burke characterized as “the Protes- 
tantism of Protestantism; the dissidence of dissent”. 
He was, then, permitted to give private lectures in 
the University of Leyden, the city of Holland, which, 
when Geulinex was five years old, was the refugee 
home of the English Calvanists or Puritans before 


OCCASIONALISM . 109 


their arrival in New England. In Leyden he was very 

oor. His contemporaries tell us that, were It not 
for the kindly assistance of some friends, he would 
have starved or begged his bread. 

He wrote several works — Brochures on Disputed 
Propositions, a Logic, and Ethics, a Physics and a 
Metaphysics. 

Geulincx’s contribution to philosophy was a fuller 
development of Descartes’ principles, which ulti- 
mately culminated in the system called “Occasional- 
ism’. 

What, then, is Occasionalism ? 

To understand the system we must first clearly 
grasp what is meant by an “occasion” and how it dif- 
fers from a “cause”, strictly so-called. 

‘We are here concerned with what is termed “effi- 
cient cause’. That, then, according to Aristotle, is an 
“efficient cause” which is the source or principle of the 
activity which produces something, or, if you wish, 
“the agencies in nature which, by their activity, bring 
about a change which is called effect”. The sun is 
the cause of atmospheric heat, sugar is the cause of 
the sweetening of my coffee. 

An “occasion” is something very different. An 
“occasion” is any circumstance or combination of 
circumstances favorable to the action of a free cause. 
For instance, a forced sale may be the occasion for 
buying cheaply; night an occasion of theft; bad com- 
panionship an occasion of sin. But in these different 
cases “neither the forced sale” did the cheap buying; 
“the night” did not perpetrate the theft, nor does a 
“bad companion” commit the personal sin of his asso- 
ciate. Hence, an occasion is always spoken of in con- 
nection with a free cause or agent, and it differs from 
a cause in having no positive and direct influence on 
the production of the effect. An occasion has, how- 


110 CARTESIANISM 


ever, a real, though indirect, influence on the produc- 
tion of the effect by soliciting and suggesting the de- 
termination of the efficient free cause to act. 

Having now understood that a “cause” is an agent 
that directly produces, by its own inherent activity, 
some happening or effect, as when we say the sun 
produces the effect of light and heat, and having 
understood also that as “occasion” is some favorable 
circumstance which is taken advantage of by some 
free cause to do or perform some action which it may 
not otherwise have thought of doing, as when I may 
take advantage of the occasion of passing an ice- 
cream parlor to treat myself and my friends to a plate 
of that palatable delicacy. Geulincx asked the ques- 
tion, as a good Cartesian, whether there existed in 
this world real and true created causes and real effects 
which are truly produced by these causes? 

Does matter, he asked, by its own activity, really 
act upon matter? When, for instance, H, S and O 
come together in certain proportions, do they really 
produce as active, causal agents the chemical com- 
pound known as He SO.? 

Again, Geulinex asked himself, do the beasts of the 
field, as genuine causes, produce certain effects by 
their own activity, as for example, should I be kicked 
by a mule, is it the mule that is the real cause of my 
wound? 

To turn to the vegetable kingdom, Geulinex was 
also curious to know whether real causes acted here, 
whether, for instance, the acorn is a real cause of the 
growth of the sturdy oak? 

Lastly, Geulinex also asked, can matter act upon 
spirit and spirit upon matter; can this chair, for in- 
stance, so act upon me as to determine in my mind the 
idea of a chair, or, again, is it really my will-action 


OCCASIONALISM 111 


that initiates the movement of my arm and really 
causes me to walk, talk, sing or dance? 

What answer did Geulincx give to these different 
questions? Let us first take up the apparent action of 
matter upon matter. 

You recall that Descartes thought that the essence 
of matter was “extension” and extension alone. Now, 
extension of three dimensions, length, breadth and 
depth, is absolutely inactive. Extension is in itself 
stolidly inert. It can do nothing. It cannot even 
move. It is gagged by its own inherent inertia. If it 
is of its essence inert, it is absolutely impossible, there- 
fore, for matter that is void of all activity to produce 
a change or effect even in other matter. Hence, Geu- 
linex concluded very logically, from the essential in- 
ertness of matter as taught by Descartes, that it can 
never be a real and true efficient cause. 

But you will ask, what brought about the Hz SOs, 
if the elements H, S and O by their activities did not? 
Geulincx will promptly answer that the real, true 
cause of the H2 SOs: are not the elemental activities 
of H, S and O, as you imagine. The real invisible 
cause that is active in each case is God and God alone. 
God availed Himself, indeed, of the presence of the 
Hand O, and §S, as an “occasion” merely, but it was 
His omnipotent power that directly produced the 
effect H2SOs. Mere matter, on Cartesian princi- 
ples, could not do so. 

Hence, according to the Occasionalists, God is the 
sole cause of all the changes we observe in the king- 
dom of matter. Material objects which we, in our 
simplicity, think are causes are only “occasions” for 
God’s action. That is, God takes advantage of the 
presence of matter to produce of Himself, directly 
and immediately, as the one and only acting cause in 


112 CARTESIANISM 


the material kingdom, certain effects. The force of 
gravitation, then, as Newton understood it, is a myth. 
It is only a name for God’s direct action. Chemical 
and physical forces are myths. God and God alone is 
the Universal Cause in the material world, and mat- 
ter is only His “occasion”. Hence, Occasionalism. 

The same is true of the animal and vegetable world. 
Animals, according to Descartes, and vegetables, too, 
are mere machines. Descartes calls those “Automa- 
tons”. They have no vital principle. Hence, they are 
not really living beings, but inanimate machines. 
Hence, all their actions are mechanical, and God 
directly gives them their push as He does to inani- 
mate matter. Beasts have no sensations proper. Ob- 
jects outside of the beasts impress them by the impact 
of mechanical motion of which God is the immediate 
cause. That motion is imparted to the animal nerves 
and muscles as to so many wheels in a machine, and 
they move and walk as a child’s Christmas toy would 
move, after the manner of an automaton or machine, 
and God is the only cause of their motion. 

It is the same for plants. Motion from outside, 
communicated in the first place by God, explains for 
Geulinex all the effects of growth and reproduction 
in the vegetable world. Just as the billiard player im- 
parts motion to the first ball, and this is communi- 
cated to the others, so does God impart, immediately 
as the one and only cause in existence, all the motion 
to the things of the material, animal and vegetable 
world, and by that means produces all their effects, 
of which He is the only cause, their presence being 
merely “occasions” for His action. 

We now come to “Occasionalism” as applied to 
man. You remember that though Descartes did not 
admit the existence of matter or that of his own body 
through the direct and immediate testimony of his 


OCCASIONALISM 113 


senses, nor did he demonstrate legitimately, as he at- 
tempted to do, the existence of matter, yet he admitted 
finally that matter and his own body really existed, 
and was not personally an Idealist. Still, by assert- 
ing that the essence of the soul was “thought” and 
that the essence of matter was “extension’’, he set up 
between soul and body such a chasm of separation 
that he forever precluded the possibility of matter 
acting upon soul or soul upon matter, even when that 
matter was his own body. This absolute separation of 
soul and body in man is what is known in philosophy 
as the “exaggerated dualism of Descartes’. He left 
this dualism as a sad heritage to all succeeding gen- 
erations. It was upon this rock of “exaggerated dual- 
ism” that the philosophy of Descartes ultimately split. 
No philosopher of his school has really succeeded, and 
no philosopher can ever succeed, in bridging this 
chasm and restoring the union of body and soul in 
man, simply because Descartes’ dualism is an errone- 
ous interpretation of human nature, which, in every 
man is not two natures, but one complete nature, 
though its constituents are two incomplete substances, 
body and soul. Attempts have been made to establish 
unity in man. One school of philosophers restored 
indeed this unity by the drastic denial of the existence 
of the soul and became materialists, as Condillac. An- 
other school denied outright the existence of the body 
_ and became spiritualistic Idealists, as Berkeley. An- 
other school asserted the soul and body are only 
phases or aspects of the same thing, and became Pan- 
theists, as Spinoza. Geulincx, accepting the theory of 
Descartes that between the soul and body there can 
be no interaction, promptly concluded that soul can- 
not be the true and real cause of any effect wrought 
upon the body; nor can external matter, or even our 
own bodies, ever be a true cause of any effect or 


114 . CARTESIANISM 


change wrought upon the soul. In other words, there 
are no secondary causes acting in the universe. There 
is only one cause that immediately and directly pro- 
duces every effect in the mineral, vegetable, animal 
and human world. That one cause is God. This is, 
briefly, the doctrine of Occasionalism. 

Now, there are two questions of paramount impor- 
tance for the student of the History of. Philosophy to 
understand: 


1. From what principles of Descartes’ philoso- 
phy did the Occasionalists profess to deduce 
logically their curious system? 

2. What were the serious consequences, for mor- 
ality and religion, that flowed logically from 
the system of Occasionalism? 


1. In answer to the first question, recall that Des- 
cartes taught that the body and soul or spirit in man 
were two wholly distinct, opposite and independent 
substances; that Descartes confessed that he could 
form no clear and distinct idea of their wnion or 
mutual interaction. Yet their union and interaction 
Descartes seemed to admit. He even made desperate 
efforts to unite soul and body and explain their inter- 
action. His explanation was that he ascribed all the 
motions of the body, which was, like minerals, vege- 
tables and animals, a mere automaton, to the motions 
of what he called the “animal spirits”, a kind of subtle 
fluid that permeated the body, and met the soul in 
the “pineal gland” in the brain. Those “animal spir- 
its”, he asserted, somehow acted upon the soul, and 
the soul, in turn, gave at least direction to the animal 
spirits as a driver directs the movements of his horse. 
But the followers of Descartes did not fail to see that 
this explanation of the union of soul and of body, and 
of their mutual interaction, contradicts his already 


OCCASIONALISM 115 


established principle that spirit could not unite with 
body or act upon body. Hence, spirit could not act 
upon the “animal spirits”, which were material and of 
a bodily nature. The only way left, then, to Des- 
cartes’ followers was to call in the direct intervention 
of God to unite soul and body, and bring about their 
interaction by a miracle of His omnipotent power. 
God alone, then, according to the Occasionalists, is 
the one and only direct cause of the union and inter- 
action between soul and body. Thus an act of our 
will (and the extreme Occasionalists, like the Calvin- 
istic Geulinex, taught that even our will was not free, 
but was moved necessarily by God) is for God merely 
an occasion for His effecting a movement in our limbs, 
like the raising of our arm, walking or talking, etc.; 
and an impression made mechanically on our senses 
is an occasion for Him to arouse in our soul a corres- 
ponding perception or idea of an external object. To 
the mind of Geulincx, the transition from the prin- 
ciple of Occasionalism, as applicable to soul and 
body, to the application of the same principle to the 
interaction of all other apparent agencies in creation, 
was very easy. If God is the only cause of the union 
and interaction of soul and body, He is also the only 
cause of the union of bodies among themselves. To 
help out the logical validity of this transition Geu- 
_linex introduced into Cartesianism his famous, though 
curious, principle that “nothing acts that does not 
know how it acts”. Hence, in all creation there is only 
one cause, the first cause, — God, and there are no 
secondary or created causes. This conclusion brought 
philosophy to the verge of Pantheism. The Jew of 
Amsterdam, Spinoza, a contemporary of Geulincx, 
promptly deduced, as we shall see, the conclusion of 
-Pantheism. It is a strange fact in the history of 
thought that every serious deviation of philosophical 


116 CARTESIANISM 


systems from Scholasticism sooner or later developed 
into some form of Pantheism. 

2. What were the consequences of Occasionalism 
in the field of Morality and Religion? 

Those withering consequences have, or ought to 
have, for Americans a peculiar, because a domestic, 
interest. Because “Occasionalism” formed a philo- 
sophical basis on which rested the Calvinistic Puri- 
tanism of the early days of New England. 

If God, then, does everything both in me and in all 
other created things, then I can do absolutely noth- 
ing. I am incapable of action, for I am not the cause 
of my actions. I have no will, much less a free will. 
What, then, is the use of my wishing to be virtuous 
when I cannot even wish or will to be virtuous or to 
serve God. If I give up my life for the faith, or sell 
all my goods to feed the poor, it is not I who do those 
things. If I shoot a man or commit a burglary, or 
any crime, it is not I who do those things. God, ac- 
cording to the Occasionalists, does them all. That is 
the loathsome doctrine of Occasionalism, as it is the 
execrable doctrine of Puritanism— God caused men 
to sin, foreordains or predestines them to sin, that He 
might punish them. The Puritans believe they were 
the chosen of God, foreordained and predestined to 
virtue without the slightest effort of their own. They 
were, by the nature of things, effortless. The only rea- 
sonable attitude, therefore, to assume in life is an 
absolute inactivity, a surrender of oneself to the un- 
avoidable current of inexorable Fate. “Ubi nihil 
vales, nihil velis’. (Cf. New England Thought, 
Cath. Mind, Oct. 22, 1914.) No philosophical system 
of history has ever attributed to the divine Being a 
character so loathsome and execrable as did Puritan- 
ism”. (Moses Coit Tyler, Amer. Lit.) The same 
may be said of Occasionalism. This doctrine opens 


OCCASIONALISM LIZ 


the way to the complete annihilation of all created 
things, because if creatures cannot do anything, why 
should they exist? 





Cuapter VII. 
ON TOLOGISM 


The restless mind of man cannot but press a prin- 
ciple to the utmost limit of its implications even 
though centuries should intervene between the prem- 
ises and the conclusion. 

The embryonic principles implanted in the bosom 
of any new system of thought rarely reach their 
maturity during the lifetime of its founder. They 
usually await the process of mental incubation in the 
minds of disciples and followers of the original 
founder before their full significance is fully devel- 
oped and made manifest. If the original principles of 
the founder are true, they will bring forth fruit 
wholesome, sound and beautiful. If these same orig- 
inal principles are false, by their evil fruits you shall 
know them. 

Hence, it is that according to the second method 
of criticism heretofore indicated, the truth or false- 
hood of the principles embosomed in Descartes’ phil- 
osophy must stand or fall by the wholesomeness or 
poisonous character of the conclusions that have been 
logically deduced from them by his admirers and dis- 
ciples. 

The “Occasionalism” of Geulinex was the first fruit 
of Occasionalism in the order of time. Its interpre- . 
tation of nature may be reduced to the simple for- 
mula— all the created beings in the world, whether 
matter or spirit, are inert, devoid of all inherent activ- 
ity of themselves. They are incapable of acting upon 
one another because they cannot, of themselves, act of 


120 CARTESIANISM 


all. Hence, there are no created causes whatsoever. 
God is the only cause. What a strange conception of 
nature such a theory sets before our vision! It sug- 
gests that all created nature, be it matter or spirit, is, 
as it were, in cold storage, and frozen into inactivity 
and inertia. Remark that, as a philosophical system, 
it suggests the denial of free-will and this denial of 
free-will was at the basis of the Calvinistic or Puritan 
religion, the religion of New England in Colonial 
days, and the religion of Cromwell’s round heads in 
England. It involves the fearful doctrine of Calvin- 
istic Predestination. If the multiplicity of material 
things as well as human souls have no real activity 
of their own, distinct from the activity of their 
First Cause— God, on what ground could we sup- 
pose them to have a real ewistence of their own, 
distinct from God? Would not the logical inference 
be. justified that material and spiritual beings have 
no real existence in themselves, but are all merely 
phases or aspects of God? Because, as far as we are 
concerned, we can know objects because their actions 
come under our observation. But since Geulincx 
assures us that the only active agent that is at the 
back of all material objects and souls is God alone, 
then we ought reasonably conclude that God alone 
exists, and what we call matter and souls have no 
existence at all in themselves. There is, therefore, in 
existence only one substance and that is divine. This 
is the formula that expresses Pantheism. 

Within thirty years after the death of Descartes, 
this conclusion, which was latent in his system, rap- 
idly matured, through the two-fold stages of “Occa- 
sionalism” and “Ontologism’’, into the rank and open 
Pantheism of Baruch Spinoza. No wonder, then, that 
some Protestants, Jesuits and other Catholic philoso- 
phers were, from the beginning, keen to perceive the 


ONTOLOGISM 121 


fatal consequences that were implicitly contained in 
the principles of Descartes. Nor are we surprised 
that six years after his death the Synod of Dortrecht 
(1656) forbade theologians to adopt Descartes’ sys- 
tem, that Rome put his writings on the Index “until 
_ corrected” (1663), and in 1671 the exposition of Des- 
cartes’ doctrine was prohibited by royal decree in the 
University of Paris. 

Before setting before you, however, the ultimate 
development of Cartesianism into Pantheism of Spi- 
noza, we shall be obliged to give a brief exposition of 
the second development of Descartes’ principles on 
the onward march toward the precipice of Monism or 
Pantheism. This second stage is called “Ontologism”, 
and its father and founder was the famous Nicholas 
Malbranche. It must be remembered that he, too, 
like Geulinex, was an Occasionalist. Nicholas Male- 
branche was born in Paris August 6, 1688. The son 
of a royal officer, he was, of a family of many chil- 
dren, the youngest and weakest. Indeed, he was so 
afflicted in his early manhood by a nausea of the stom- 
ach that for twenty years every attempt to take food 
was painful. He was unusually tall and thin, and, un- 
fortunately, deformed by a curvature of the spine. 
His head alone was well developed, his eyes fiery, 
and the expression of his countenance was mild and 
amiable. He bore his afflictions with great patience, 
lived temperately, cultivated his mind in peace and 
quietness, and thereby preserved his life to the age of 
seventy-seven. Destined for the priesthood, he stud- 
ied philosophy in the College of De Marche, and took 
his theological course in the Sorbonne. Like Des- 
cartes, his studies left him dissatisfied. With these 
feelings of dissatisfaction, he became, at the age of 
twenty-one, a priest of the Oratory of Jesus. Not 
until Malebranche was twenty-six years did he himself 


122 CARTESIANISM 


or anybody else discover his philosophical talents. It 
was a mere accident that revealed to him his latent 
abilities. Walking along the Rue St. Jacque, he en- 
tered a book-store. His attention was called to the 
latest literary novelty, The Treatise of Man, by 
Descartes. He took the book home, read it, and his 
enthusiasm and admiration were aroused. For the 
first time he felt the charm of philosophy. He had to 
put the book down more than once, because his throb- 
bing heart would not let him read further. At last 
he felt his mind alienated from all other subjects, and 
for ten.years was completely absorbed in the study of 
Descartes. At the end of this period he published 
his famous book, The Investigation of Truth, which 
rapidly went through six editions. Other books fol- 
lowed, and so much was he admired that Buffon 
called him “the divine Malebranche”’. 

Despite his love of quiet, the rest of his life was 
occupied in bitter controversies with the Jansenist 
Arnauld, with the Jesuits, with Fenelon and Bossuet. 
He lived in his cell in the Oratory in such deep retire- 
ment for half a century that he was called the silent 
and meditative man. Many distinguished visitors to 
Paris paid their respects to him. A story is told that 
during his last illness he was visited by Berkeley, the 
Irish philosopher, and the eager conversation that fol- 
lowed about the existence of matter hastened his 
death. He died after four months of suffering, Octo- 
ber 18, 1715. 

What, then, was the system of Ontologism of which 
Malebranche was the founder and of whom the first 
English translator (1694) of his well-known work, 
The Investigation of Truth (1675), Richard Sault, 
says: “The very faults of this great man have some- 
thing in them extremely beautiful, and the jewel is so 
dazzling that the flaws are scarce discerned”? 


ONTOLOGISM 123 


Unlike “Occasionalism”, Ontologism is not an ex- 
planation of the causes of the manifold and varied 
changes observed around us; it is a theory, rather, of 
knowledge or the origin of our ideas. 

Malebranche, with remarkable brevity, enumerates 
all the possible explanations to account for the origin 
of our ideas in B.III., C.1., of his Investigation of 
Truth. He writes: “We are assured that it is abso- 
lutely necessary that the ideas we have of bodies, and 
of all other objects which we perceive not by them- 
selves, either proceed (1) from these bodies or these 
objects (Scholasticism), or else that (2) our souls 
have the power of producing these ideas (Subjective 
Idealism) ; or that (8) God created them with our 
souls (Descartes’ innate ideas) ; or that God (4) pro- 
duces them every time that we think of any object 
(Occasionalism) ; or, in fine, that our soul is (5) 
united with a perfect Being which in general includes 
all the perfection of created beings’. 

Now, Malebranche rejects the four first explana- 
tions and adopts the last, to wit, that the soul is inti- 
mately united with the perfect Being of God, Who 
includes all the perfection of Created things; that our 
minds, therefore, “see all things in God”. He teaches, 
then, the extraordinary doctrine that our ideas of 
objects around us, or within us, are not derived in any 
way from these objects themselves, as we suppose, 
but that we see God by our intellect directly and im- 
mediately, by an intuitive vision, and in God we see 
all things. 

Farther on in his book he explains more in detail 
the curious origin of our ideas in the soul. 

“All beings, he says, “can only be present to our 
mind because God is present to it, that is, He who 
includes all things in the simplicity of His being”. 
(B. IIl., C. VI.) Descartes, you remember, made 


124 CARTESIANISM 


consciousness the discoverer of ideas that were inborn 
or innate in our own souls. He looked into himself to 
gaze at ideas already formed and representative, as 
he thought, of the things outside of us. Scholasticism 
looks out upon objects and teaches that it is these ob- 
jects that are, somehow, the determining causes of 
our ideas. Malebranche neither looks into his soul, 
nor out upon objects, but looks wp to God, “Who”, 
he says, “is very strictly united to our souls by His 
presence, so that we may say that He is the place of 
spirits, as space is the place of bodies... .” “It is cer- 
tain, then’, he continues, “that the mind may see what 
there is in God, which represents created things”. 
Malebranche rejected Descartes’ innate ideas, be- 
cause, as he argues, his theory was simpler, and 
“God”, he says, “never does, by very difficult means, 
what may be done by a plain, easy way”. (B. IIL., 
C. VI.) When we know objects, then, Malebranche’s 
theory is, that we do not know them through our per- 
ception of ideas within owr soul, representative of 
outer objects, as Descartes taught, or by perceiving 
them directly in themselves, as the Scholastics teach, 
but we know them by contemplating the ideas of them 
in God, —the Malebranchian mystical theory of On- 
tologism. 

As a theory, then, to explain the origin of our ideas, 
Ontologism professes to be a logical deduction from 
the same principle of Cartesianism that produced 
Occasionalism. Hence, the Ontologists taught the 
doctrine of Occasionalism to explain all the effects 
produced in material nature, which ordinary com- 
mon-sense men attribute to the efficiency of natural 
or secondary causes. 

But since body and soul, whose essence is “thought” 
and “extension” respectively, cannot interact on each 
other, it is impossible for the idea of body or extension 


ONTOLOGISM 125 


to arise in the soul from the determining causality, in 
any sense, of bodies themselves. The idea of exten- 
sion of bodies is in the mind of God alone, and we 
know the ideas of created things only in God. 

How, then, do we invest material objects with 
sensuous qualities? Malebranche gives this curious 
answer. He says: “But though I say that we see in 
God the things that are material and sensible, it must 
be observed that I do not say we have a sensation of 
them in God, but only that it is from God, who acts 
in us; for God knows sensible things, but He does not 
fee] them. When we perceive anything that is sensi- 
ble, sensation and pure idea is in our perception (sub- 
jective). Sensation is a modification of our soul, and 
it is God Who causes it in us. And He may cause it, 
though He has it not, because He sees, in the idea He 
has of our soul, that it is capable of it. As for the 
idea that is joined to sensation, it is in God we see it, 
because it is His pleasure to discover it to us. And 
God joins sensation to the idea, when objects are 
present, to the end that we may have such sensations 
and passions as we ought to have in relation to them’. 
(B.IIL., C. VI., Investig. of Truth.) 

Analyzing this novel doctrine of Malebranche, we 
find that he teaches the following strange doctrines: 
(1) “We see in God the things that are material’. 
Hence we do not see or perceive at all material 
things in themselves. We perceive material things, 
because our minds, having a direct and _ intuitive 
vision of God, perceive the ideas of those material 
things in God. The divine ideas are the prototypes or 
models or patterns of material things. They repre- 
sent material things. Hence in perceiving the pat- 
terns of material things, we perceive those material 
things in their patterns or models. (2) “When we 
perceive anything that is sensible, Malebranche says, 


126 CARTESIANISM 


“sensation and pure idea is in our perception”. That, 
of course, we admit. It is the teaching of our ex- 
perience. The pure, intellectual idea is according to 
our author, not, however, our idea, but the idea of 
God which we contemplate. But whence comes the 
sensation that accompanies the pure idea? “I do not 
say’, says Malebranche, “we have a sensation of them 
in God, but it (7. e., the sensation) is from God, who 
acts in us”. The sensation, then, that accompanies 
the pure idea is produced by God in our souls. “Sen- 
sation”, he says, “is a modification of our soul, and it 
is God who causes it in us”. Here Malebranche reveals 
his Occasionalism. If the sensations, then, of color, 
sound, heat, taste and smell, etce., are merely modi- 
fications of our souls, known to consciousness alone, 
how can we ever know that there is anything in ob- 
jects that correspond to them? Consciousness can 
never know anything outside of us, but only our own 
subjective experiences. And the difficulty of knowing 
whether anything outside of us corresponds to our 
sensations is aggravated by Malebranche and the Car- 
tesian Occasionalists, because they teach that bodies 
or material things are not even the determining cause 
of our sensations. “For it is God”, Malebranche 
teaches, “who acts in us and causes our sensations’. 
Some philosophers, even Catholic philosophers, and 
many scientists, hold that color, sound, etc., as such, 
are not objectively in bodies as we imagine them 
to be, but, at least, all philosophers and scientists, who 
are not Idealists, admit that those qualities are caus- 
ally, if not formally, in bodies, that is, bodies cause 
those sensations in us. But Malebranche would deny 
even a causal existence of those qualities in bodies, 
since it is God who causes our sensations. 

It is only eatension which is identified with bodies, 
because it is, according to Malebranche and the Car- 


ONTOLOGISM 127 


tesians, the essence of bodies that exist outside of us. 
Yet we do not perceive, according to Malebranche, 
extension or bodies in themselves. We contemplate the 
idea of extension in God, Malebranche teaches, and 
since the divine idea of extension represents, or is the 
pattern of created extension or body, we know cre- 
ated extension or bodies outside of us and of God, 
because we contemplate its pure idea in God. Yet 
Malebranche maintains that when we contemplate the 
divine idea of extension, we do not form in our minds 
any human idea of the divine idea. The idea of ex- 
tension or body which we contemplate in God serves 
all the purposes of our knowing bodies outside of us. 
But how it is possible to contemplate an idea in God 
without forming in our souls our own idea of that 
idea is difficult to understand unless we are ourselves 
identical with God. But to make ourselves identical 
with God would, of course, be Pantheism, and there 
was not wanting future philosophers who drew this 
Pantheistic conclusion. 

Finally, all knowledge to Malebranche is a divine 
revelation, and ultimately rests on revelation. We 
acquire no knowledge directly and naturally of things 
around us. “Because”, says Malebranche, “it is His 
(God’s) pleasure to discover it (2.é., the divine idea 
of a thing) to us’. But the divine ideas were present 
in God throughout all eternity. How do we know 
that God actually created the things of the universe 
according to the model of His ideas? If we do not 
know that creation took place, we may contemplate 
God’s ideas and yet not know that anything actually 
created corresponds with them. Malebranche and the 
Ontologists were driven to answer: ‘““We know creation 
has taken place from the revelation in Genesis’. Thus it 
is obvious that all our knowledge depends ultimately 
on revelation, that it is not knowledge strictly so- 


128 CARTESIANISM 


called, but only belief or faith. This doctrine destroys 
all possibility of naturally acquired knowledge and 
opens the way to Fideism, which subsequent philoso- 
phers have advocated. (4) We have in the above 
quotation a corroboration of this doctrine of Fideism, 
or that all knowledge is faith. Because Malebranche, 
in his explanation of why God produces sensations 
in our souls, says: “and God joins sensation to the 
idea when objects are present, to the end that we may 
believe them as they are, and that we may have such 
sensations and passions as we ought to have in rela- 
tion to them’. Hence, even if our sensations gave us 
any insight into the qualities of bodies, we could not 
know those sensuous qualities of bodies, but only be- 
lieve or have faith in their existence. Endless are the 
novel aberrations of the human mind. Descartes’ phil- 
osophy and its development are for the most part 
discredited to-day, but the passion for novelties in 
thought which he inaugurated by breaking with the 
past quickly developed into unbridled “freedom of 
thought” that has expressed itself in modern times in 
a passion for novelty and change, which is called 
progress, whereas, in reality, the continuous abandon- 
ment of what we have previously gained to adopt 
what is entirely new is not progress, but destruction. 


Cuapter VIII. 


THE PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY OF 
LEIBNITZ AND THE PANTHEISM 
OF SPINOZA 


The restless pendulum of human thought is con- 
tinually swinging from one extreme to the other. In 
the history of philosophy, it is a common-place to 
observe that every novel intellectual movement seems 
to be followed by a reaction. Critics, in their indigna- 
tion and zeal for truth, repudiate the exaggerations; 
the new leaders swing to the opposite extreme. 
Hence, the Cartesians assure us that we can know 
truth only by the exercise of pure intellect or reason. 
The Empiricists, on the other hand, confidently assert 
that reason is to be discredited and that all knowledge 
is sense-knowledge. Materialists maintain that noth- 
ing exists but matter; Spiritual Idealists are just as 
dogmatic in saying there is nothing but spirit and the 
modifications of spirit. Thus it was that in the last 
development of Cartesianism, which we examined, 
the Ontologists assured us that we have an immediate 
vision of God, that we see Him face to face, while the 
modern Agnostics, Spencer, Kant, etc., are just as 
cock-sure that the human mind is incapable of know- 
ing anything about God at all. Leibnitz became the 
champion of a pluralistic universe. He taught that 
substances were infinitely many. Spinoza, on the con- 
trary, was frankly Pantheistic, and became for all 
time the protagonist of the principle that “there is 
only one substance and that that substance is divine”, 


130 CARTESIANISM 


but in a sense entirely different from that which 
Christians attribute to the Divine Being. 

It is our present purpose to give, in the first place, 
a brief exposition of the system of Leibnitz, which is 
known in the history of thought as “Pre-Established 
Harmony,” and, secondly, an explanation of the 
Pantheism of Spinoza. This Pantheistic system of 
Spinoza reveals the final development and culmina- 
tion of the embryonic conclusions that were, from the - 
first, latent in the principles of Descartes. 

Who, then, was Leibnitz? 

Leibnitz (the name is Polish or Bohemian) was, 
perhaps, the greatest of the Cartesians. He ranks — 
not merely as a philosopher, but a courtier and a man 
of affairs, who took a leading part in the political 
life of his time. He was, besides, one of the greatest 
mathematical geniuses of the world, sharing the honor 
of inventing Differential Calculus with Newton. He 
was the founder of German philosophy. Gottfried 
Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) was born at Leipsic, 
where his father was Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
He studied there and in Jena and received his doctor’s 
degree at the age of twenty. He was destined for the 
legal profession and entered the diplomatic service of 
the Elector of Mayence. In this capacity he travelled 
as member of an embassy to Paris and London. He 
paid a visit to Spinoza at the Hague, and afterwards 
became court librarian at Hanover. His manifold ac- 
tivities led him to make frequent visits to Paris, 
Vienna, Berlin, and Italy. The Pope offered him the 
headship of the Vatican library, a position which, of 
course, he declined, as its acceptance would have re- 
quired him to become a Catholic. At the instance of 
the Prussian Queen, Sophie Charlotte, a princess of 
great culture, he wrote his famous work, Theodicy 
or Natural Theology. His spirit of conciliation to 


LEIBNITZ AND SPINOZA 131 


bring together opposing schools of thought inspired 
him with an effort to reconcile the Protestant and 
Catholic churches. He was one of the most learned 
men of his time, and “in the union of productive and 
universal knowledge, Aristotle alone’, says Alexan- 
der, “can be compared to him”. 

His chief works were his Theodicy (1710), 
Monadology (1714), Nouveaux Essais sur ?Enten- 
dement Humane (1765). In this essay his criticism 
of the Empiricism of Locke embodied in the fol- 
lowing statement, “Nihil est in intellectu, quod non 
fuerit in sensu, misi intellectus ipse’”’, is famous. He 
died in Vienna, in 1716, loaded with honors. The lat- 
ter part of his life is said to be embittered by his quar- 
rels with the Newtonians. 

What, then, was the curious doctrine of “Pre- 
Established Harmony”? 

Leibnitz, the last of the great Cartesians, was an 
original thinker, conversant not only with the philos- 
ophy of Descartes, but learned in Plato and Aristo- 
tle, and well acquainted with Scholasticism, of which 
he spoke in the highest praise. The founder of phil- 
osophy in Germany, the dream of his life was to bring 
once more together into unity the different religious 
bodies. He introduced into Cartesianism many ideas 
inspired by Plato. It was remarked by Schlegel that 
every philosopher is in bent of mind either a Platon- 
ist or Aristotelian. The fundamental difference be- 
tween their philosophies is that while Aristotle and 
his followers, the Schoolmen, hold that all our knowl- 
edge in some way or other begins in sense knowledge, 
“nihil est in intellectu, nist prius fuerit in sense’, be- 
ing an axiom of Aristotle and Scholasticism, Plato 
and the Platonists maintain that the mind contains, 
as its original endowment, ideas and principles which 
are not caused by external objects, but which are only 


132 CARTESIANISM 


aroused or awakened by our different sensations. | 
Hence, Leibnitz, admitting, like Descartes, innate 
ideas, was a Platonist. 


Leibnitz likewise accepted the well-known Car- . 
tesian doctrine of the impossibility of any interaction 
between soul and body—the famous dualism of the 
Cartesians. Yet Leibnitz, as his system reveals, was 
not an Occasionalist. Soul and body seem to interact. 
How, then, does Leibnitz explain their apparent in- 
teraction? Already we have reviewed the Occasion- 
alistic and Ontologistic answer.. What was Leibnitz’ 
solution of the same problem? It is known in philoso- 
phy as the theory of “Pre-Established Harmony”. 


In what did the solution of “Pre-Established Har- 
mony” consist? It was a most ingenious theory; yet 
it had little influence on Modern thought. It was too 
far-fetched to be considered probable, and too intri- 
cate to be appealing. 


The ultimate, constituent elements of every being in 
the whole range of existence are what Leibnitz called 
“monads’”’. These monads are not like atoms, that is, 
small masses, whose essence, in the Cartesian system, 
was extension, indefinitely divisible. The monads are, 
on the contrary, simple, unextended substances re- 
plete with energy always active. They are points of 
force or metaphysical points. Hence, force is sub- 
stance and substance is force. Leibnitz rejected the 
mass-atom. Because, Leibnitz argued, there must be 
simple, indivisible substances since there are com- 
pounds, “‘for the compound is only a collection or 
aggregate of simples’. (Monadology.) 

Each monad, even those that constitute the ulti- 
mate principles of ordinary matter, are, in the strange 
teaching of Leibnitz, spirits or souls, or at least anal- 
ogous to spirits. 


LEIBNITZ AND SPINOZA 133 


There are no soulless bodies, no dead matter. The 
inorganic does not exist. Every particle of dust is 
peopled with a multitude of living beings. Every 
portion of matter is like a pond filled with fish or a 
garden full of plants. “Whence it appears’, said 
Leibnitz, “that there is a world of creatures of living 
things, of animals or souls, in the minutest portion 
of matter. Every particle of matter may be conceived 
as a garden of plants or as a pond full of fishes’. 
(Monad.) 

Every monad is endowed with perception and ap- 
petite, but in different degrees of perfection. The 
monads, which are the ultimate constituents of what 
we call inorganic matter and vegetables, though en- 
dowed with perception and appetite, are yet uncon- 
scious. In animals, at least, one monad, which gives 
unity to the whole being, becomes to a certain degree 
conscious. The souls of men as monads become more 
perfectly self-conscious. Hence, human souls are en- 
dowed with what Leibnitz calls apperception or con- 
sciousness in opposition to perception which, as such, 
is unconscious. 

All created monads are, according to the degree of 
their perfection, a likeness or image of the one in- 
finite, uncreated monad — God the Creator. Hence, 
all created monads are graded according to their 
perfection, so that they rise in the scale of perfec- 
tion from the lowest monads, which constitute mat- 
ter, to the highest monad. God is the first, uncreated, 
conscious, infinitely perfect monad. Human souls are 
next in rank. Material substances, including the body 
of man, hold the lowest place. Yet even those mate- 
rial monads are spirits or souls, though devoid of con- 
sciousness. “All simple substances or created mo- 
nads”, Leibnitz says, “may be called souls”. 


134 CARTESIANISM 


There are no two monads alike. Their difference 
arises from the fact that though each monad repre- 
sents the universe yet each represents it differently. 
This difference consists in the degree of clearness of 
the representation. There is no really transient action 
between the monads. No monad acts upon another. 
“The monads”, says Leibnitz, “have no windows 
through which anything can enter or go forth”. 

Each monad, through its power of perception, 
whether conscious or unconscious, reflects, as in a mir- 
ror, more or less perfectly all that is taking place 
within the other monads of the entire universe. Each 
monad is a little, independent universe in itself — “a 
microcosm imaging the macrocosm”’. 

One of the most extraordinary doctrines of Leib- 
nitz was the immortality of all things in the universe. 
Matter, vegetables, animals are, like the souls of men, 
immortal. Because their ultimate constituents —the 
soul-monads — are immortal. Nothing begins to be 
except by creation, nothing can end except by anni- 
hilation— “There is no way”, Leibnitz said, “in 
which a simple substance can begin naturally, since 
it could not be formed by composition. Therefore, 
we may say that monads can neither begin nor end in 
any other way than all at once; that is to say, they 
cannot begin except by creation, nor end except by 
annihilation”. (Monad.) Hence, according to Leib- 
nitz, all monads are naturally immortal, like the souls 
of men. Hence, pre-existence as well as post-exis- 
tence must be conceded both to animals and to men. 

The union of soul and body, a problem which nei- 
ther Descartes nor the Cartesians succeeded in ex- 
plaining, presented itself to Leibnitz for solution. 
How did Leibnitz solve this problem? 

The body, Leibnitz taught, is an aggregate of liv- 
ing soul-monads, each an active living force. But 


LEIBNITZ AND SPINOZA 135 


since each monad of this aggregate is immaterial and, 
therefore, simple, it follows that a collection of any 
number of simple substances could never explain the 
phenomenon of an extended mass. But the phenom- 
enon of extended mass appears to exist in bodies. 
How does Leibnitz explain this phenomenon of ex- 
tension which our body seems to present? This phe- 
nomenon of extended mass, Leibnitz taught, was an 
illusion of sensuous perception. Matter or extended 
mass was not really objective. Matter is only some- 
thing present in sensation in a confused representa- 
tion. Space and time are also nothing real, but only 
ideal things. Our confused sensuous perception of the 
collection of monads composing a body is regarding 
as a continuous unity something, perhaps, like the 
illusion of perceiving the swiftly moving spokes of a 
wheel as a continuous unity. The soul is a monad 
quite independent of the body, yet dominating the 
collection of monads that constitute the body, because 
of the superior clearness with which it represents what 
is taking place in the body monads. The soul and 
body of each person have been so created and mated 
by God as to run like two clocks, so excellently con- 
structed that, without needing to be regulated by each 
other, they show exactly the same time. The changes, 
then, whether they be ideas or motions arising in each 
individual’s soul, are in exact harmony with the same 
series of changes arising in each individual’s body. 
Thus did Leibnitz hold that all phenomena of per- 
ception and volition are adequately accounted for. 
Such is the ingenious theory of the Pre-Established 
Harmony of Leibnitz. 

Leibnitz gives this account of his curious theory: 
He says, “I cannot help coming to this notion that 
God created the soul in such a manner at first that it 
should represent within itself all the simultaneous 


136 CARTESIANISM 


changes in the body; and that he made the body also 
in such a manner that it must of itself do what the 
soul wills”. 

Leibnitz may be said to be an exaggerated opti- 
mist. Because he taught that this created world is the 
best world God could create. God, the Creator, he 
argued, is infinitely intelligent, omnipotent and infi- 
nitely good. When God created the universe, then, 
he gave expression to the best possible combination of 
possible existences, and, therefore, created the best 
possible world. Not that the world is absolutely per- 
fect, but it is the most perfect among all possible 
worlds. 

It may be well to contrast the outstanding differ- 
ences between the system of Leibnitz and that of Des- 
cartes. They are — 

(1) Leibnitz taught that matter is not, as Descar- 
tes maintained, an inert, dormant, inactive mass, 
whose essence is extension or length, breadth and 
depth. Leibnitz maintained, on the contrary, that the 
ultimate constituents of matter, namely, monads, 
were intrinsically active points of force. All changes 
in them proceeded from an internal principle. Leib- 
nitz, therefore, rejected the mechanical theory of Des- 
cartes to explain all the changes in the material uni- 
verse. Extension, then, which in Descartes’ system 
held such an important place, was to Leibnitz a mere 
sensuous illusion, which had no objective reality, be- 
cause each and all things were spirits or souls. 

(2) Leibnitz was not an Occasionalist like Geu- 
lincx and Malebranche. Leibnitz rejected Occasional- 
ism, because it involved an endless series of miracles. 

(3) According to Descartes some ideas (pure con- 
cepts) are innate, according to Leibnitz all ideas are 
innate. According to Locke, as we shall afterwards 
see, no ideas are innate. 


LEIBNITZ AND SPINOZA 137 


We shall complete the chief systems that developed 
from the principles of Descartes by an exposition of 
the Pantheism of Baruch Spinoza. The developments 
with Descartes’ own system are known as Cartesian- 
ism. 

Baruch or Benedict Spinoza or De Spinoza, the 
Jew of Amsterdam, was born November 24th in that 
city, 1632, and died in the Hague, 1677. His parents 
were Jewish-Portuguese extraction. His teacher in 
Hebrew was the celebrated Rabbi Marteira, who in- 
troduced him to the study of the Talmud and the 
Bible. He studied Latin also under the noted phy- 
sician, Franz von der Edde. Brought up in the He- 
brew faith, he was expelled from the Jewish com- 
munity on account of his “frightful heresies”. Though 
interested in Christianity and the life and the teach- 
ing of Christ, he never formally accepted the Chris- 
tian faith. He lived in great retirement, engaged in 
his philosophical pursuits, took lodgings with a land- 
lady of the Calvanistic creed, and supported himself 
by the polishing of lenses. He lived a frugal life. 
He was not without friends, but from them he would 
never accept monetary aid. He was called to the pro- 
fessor’s chair at Heidelberg, but declined, on the 
ground that he might be there hindered in the full 
liberty of thought. Of a delicate constitution, he died 
of consumption at the age of forty-four. 

His writings are: The Principles of the Philoso- 
phy of Descartes; Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ; 
Tractatus de Intellectus Emandatione; Epistolae; 
Treatise Concerning God and Man; Ethica— In 
this latter work is contained his philosophical system. 
Diverse opinions have been entertained of Spinoza. 
Dugald Stewart sees in his philosophy black Athe- 
ism, Novalis, a moral and honest man. “Avoid what 
is evil”, he says, “because it-is opposite to my nature 


138 CARTESIANISM 


and draws me away from the knowledge of and love 
of God”. 


The Pantheistic doctrine of Spinoza took for its 
starting-point Descartes’ definition of Swhbstance. 
“By substance”, says Descartes, “we can conceive 
nothing else than a thing which exists in such a way 
as to stand in need of nothing beyond itself in order 
to its existence”. (Prin. of Phil., Pt. I., 51.) Des- 
cartes distinguished the uncreated (substantia a se) 
from created substance (substantia ab alio). But 
Spinoza, casting aside Descartes’ created substance, 
adopted the first. Thus did Descartes’ peculiar con- 
cept of substance leave the way wide open for Spinoza 
to assert that, since the Descartes’ substance “stands 
in need of nothing beyond itself in order to its exis- 
tence”, there can exist only one substance — God. 
Hence, Spinoza, following closely on Descartes, thus 
defines substance — “I mean”, he says, “by substance 
that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself ; 
in other words, that of which a conception can be 
formed, independently of any other conception”. 
Spinoza argued that from this definition of substance 
the following conclusions logically follow: 


(1) that substance has no cause, otherwise it 
should be conceived as dependent on its 
cause, and thus would not be “independent 
of any other conception”. 


(2) that substance is infinite, because if it had 
limitations, those limitations would demand 
a cause independent of the original sub- 
stance, and hence this latter could not be 
conceived as independent. 


Hence, there can be only one substance, be- 
cause its infinitude excludes all limitations. 


(3 


—" 


LEIBNITZ AND SPINOZA 139 


The only substance that exists, Spinoza con- 
cludes, is God, and there is no other sub- 
stance in existence besides God. Therefore, 
God is the same as the world and nature. 
There is only one substance, then, in all ex- 
istence, and that substance is divine. 


This is the fundamental statement of Pantheism. 
There is, therefore, no plurality of substances as we 
imagine. Every particular substance, which seems 
to us to exist, whether it be spirit or matter, is only 
a modification, aspect or attribute of the one uni- 
versal substance— God. All things, therefore, are 
identified with God. They are God. “I think that I 
have shown sufficiently”, writes Spinoza (Prop., 
XVI.), “that from the supreme power or infinite 
nature of God, all things have resulted, or do, ever 
with the same necessity, result, in the same manner in 
which, from everlasting to everlasting, it results from 
the nature of a triangle, that its three angles are 
equal to two right angles”. “Thought”, which consti- 
tutes, according to Descartes, the spiritual world, and 
“extension”, which constitutes the material world, are 
both attributes of the divine substance. Hence, the 
“exaggerated dualism” of the Cartesians is reduced 
to unity. This one, all-embracing substance is imper- 
sonal, because it does not act intelligently for any 
purpose, nor is it free, except in the Spinozian sense, 
of not being dependent. It evolves itself from its 
own inner necessity. All its attributes proceed from 
it with the same necessity as geometrical properties 
flow from the nature of a circle or triangle. Hence, 
there is no freedom of the human will, because human 
beings are merged in God. The laws of nature are 
absolutely immutable, hence, miracles are impossible. 
There is no immortality of the soul, because there is 


140 CARTESIANISM 


no soul existing in itself outside of God. Hence, we 
ourselves and all things around us, are only like tiny 
wavelets in the great ocean of substance; we roll our 
little course and sink to rise no more. There is no God 
independent of the universe and no creation. Such 
is the theory of our modern pagans and atheists. Such 
is the theory towards which Cartesianism logically 
conducts us, such is the despairing theory to which 
much of modern thought leads. 

Not many years ago in New England the school of 
Transcendentalists, whose leaders were Emerson, 
Bronson Alcott and Theodore Parker, were Panthe- 
ists. Bronson Alcott, for instance, once said: 

“T am God. I am greater than God. God is one of | 
my ideas. I therefore contain God; greater is the 
container than the contained. Therefore, am I greater 
than God.” And again, “Man is a rudiment and 
embryon God”. 

Josiah Royce, late Professor of Philosophy in Har- 
vard, who quotes Spinoza so often with approval, was 
frankly Pantheistic or Monistic in his teaching. He 
writes, for instance, “There is one absolute World- 
Self; who embraces and is all reality, whose conscious- 
ness includes, and infinitely transcends, our own’. 
(The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, p. 849.) 

The extreme Evolutionists who assert that matter 
alone is, and that it is eternal, ever evolving itself by 
itself into the multiplicity of forms and beings around 
us, are, like Haeckel, Materialistic Monists or Pan- 
theists, as Professor Royce was an Idealistic Monist, 
like Hegel and Fichte. Truly the errors of Descartes 
and the Cartesians possess a logical fecundity in pro- 
ducing other errors. When the foundations of a 
building are rotten, it is not likely that the upper 
stories will be stable. 


CHAPTER IX. 


SOME PRACTICAL LESSONS TO BE 
LEARNED FROM CARTESIANISM 


Many practical people imagine that philosophers 
are always thinking in the clouds and that the princi- 
ples they set forth have no bearing on practical life. 
It is true that philosophers work out their principles 
in the upper regions of lonely thought, as the rain is 
formed in the silent clouds. But just as the rain falls 
to earth and moistens unto growth its hidden seeds, 
so do the principles of men of thought soon find their 
way into the minds of the men in the street, mould 
their convictions and thereby set in motion the springs 
of human action. Should those principles be sound and 
wholesome, so will the actions of the masses, which are 
the natural fruitage of those principles, be likewise 
sound and wholesome. Should those principles, on 
the other hand, be unsound and false, they will ex- 
press themselves in a crop of destructive and evil ac- 
tions. As a general, who is usually invisible to the 
great masses of troops, directs the movements of the 
army, so philosophical principles of some kind, 
whether true or false, are the invisible inspiring mo- 
tives of all great movements in history. 

Now, Cartesianism, which we have just studied, 
affords a practical and striking example of the appli- 
cation of the above principles. Descartes, no doubt, 
was oneof the great minds of alltime. He, during his 
own lifetime, proposed and popularized certain ger- 
_ minal principles, the logical implications of which his 


142 CARTESIANISM 


disciples forthwith developed into the further systems 
of Occasionalism (Geulinex), Ontologism (Male- 
branche), both of which were gradually shaping and 
bringing to full maturity that hideous synthesis of 
all contradictions which finally emerged from the em- 
bryonic principles of Descartes—the monster of 
Pantheism. Pantheism is practical Atheism, a word 
hated of all men, a doctrine that is destructive of a 
Personal God as the Creator of all things, destructive 
of all hope of immortality, of free-will, consequently, 
of religion and morality. Such was the outcome, mark 
it well, of what the modern non-Catholic world hails 
as the most brilliant period of French philosophy — 
the age of Cartesians. 

With the view of emphasizing the danger of har- 
boring false principles, allow me to anticipate the 
final outcome of the philosophy of two other great 
nations, England and Germany. As Descartes was 
the father of French philosophy, so John Locke is 
reputed to be the father of English philosophy. To- 
wards the end of the seventeenth century, when 
Cartesianism began to decline, John Locke was en- 
thusiastically hailed as the opponent of Descartes, 
and the precursor of the newest fashion in philosoph- 
ical thought. Locke, too, during the eighteenth cen- 
tury had many ardent disciples. They quickly devel- 
oped the logical implications of his principles. And 
though Locke himself was not a Materialist, any more 
than Descartes was a Pantheist, yet in half a century 
Locke’s system developed into rank Materialism. 

Kant of Germany rejected, in turn, the English 
philosophy of Materialism, and inaugurated what is 
known to-day as German philosophy. In the hands of 
Kant’s disciple, Fichte, and, subsequently, of Shell- 
ing and Hegel, Kantianism quickly matured into 
Idealistic Pantheism, which is nothing more than an- 


SOME PRACTICAL LESSONS 143 


other form of advanced Atheism. Hence, that climax 
of human monstrosities — Nietzsche, could say — 
“God is dead, long live the transcendental man”. 
Such, in briefest outline, is the boasted outcome of 
modern intellectuality. 

Set before your mind and consider calmly this re- 
markable fact: What professed to be the best minds 
of France, England and Germany applied their 
human reason with prodigious energy and labor to 
solve the great problems of philosophy —the exis- 
tence and attributes of God, the origin and destiny 
of man and the material world, the relations that exist 
between the Creator and the Creature, the obligations 
and duties of religion and morality. They all pos- 
sessed the same faculty of reason. The same data 
were before their minds. The Frenchman, the Eng- 
lishman, the German started with high hopes of suc- 
cess. As conclusion followed conclusion in the mind 
of each, their paths became widely divergent, and 
their ultimate answers, to the problems they set out to 
solve, mutually contradictory. No one, not even the 
philosophers of their own schools, are satisfied with 
their solutions. From the days of Descartes to the 
present day, in all the most cultured and highly civil- 
ized countries, human reason has exercised itself in a 
riot of freedom in the solution of “the riddle of the 
universe” and with what result? Confusion worse 
confounded, strife among the members of the ration- 
alistic churches, all kinds of fads and vagaries pranc- 
ing about their pulpits, Spiritualists vomiting their ec- 
toplasm, Christian Science trying to ignore bodily dis- 
ease, and Liberals tearing to pieces the remnants of 
Catholicity preserved by the Fundamentalists. Such, 
in brief, is the story of the failure of non-Catholic 
philosophies since the time of the Reformation. 


144 CARTESIANISM 


Driven by a yearning for truth, which lives in the 
breast of every man, did a Descartes, a Locke, a 
Kant, a Hegel—the representative minds of the 
modern non-Catholic world — embark, like so many 
mariners with brave determination, unquestioned sin- 
cerity and singleness of purpose upon the high seas 
of thought, to discover for the human race the true 
solution that would be universally accepted as satis- 
factory and convincing of the ultimate course and 
final destiny of man and of the visible world around 
him. With high hopes of success, they, and hundreds 
of less brilliant minds, loosened their sails of reason 
to the breeze of their personal genius. Thousands of 
their non-Catholic brethren cheered them on, and bade 
them “bon voyage”. Patiently did the latter await on 
the shore for their philosophers’ triumphant return, 
to receive, at last, an harmonious message from their 
lips that would for ever more solve the “riddle of the 
universe”. Their gallant intellectuals return. They 
deliver their messages. The Gallic savant, in his ex- 
cellent French style, declares that the ultimate con- 
clusion of his rational explorations is Pantheism. The 
vast majority of his audience turned away in disgust. 

The English philosopher takes the platform, and 
with Saxon bluntness declares that the ultimate ex- 
planation and destiny of all things are dust and mat- 
ter. An indignant cry of protest is heard from his 
audience, 


“Dust thou art, to dust returneth, 
Was not spoken of the soul.” 


The brusque German, the great Kant, appears. “T 
have spent twelve years in my explorations of discov- 
ery’, he says, “and I have found out that no man can 
know the existence of God by reason. A thing in it- 
self exists, but nobody can know anything about it. 


SOME PRACTICAL LESSONS 145 


You cannot know even your own real selves. We 
live in a dreamland. We know only the phantoms of 
things — the projections of our own mind — phenom- 
ena.” 

As you study the history of non-Catholic modern 
thought, you will be convinced that the findings of 
non-Catholic philosophers during the last three hun- 
dred years are a Babel of contradictions mutually 
destructive of one another. 

Are we, then, as witnesses of this tragedy of fail- 
ure, to despair of the ability of individual human rea- 
son of itself to discover with certainty that God the 
Creator of all things exists, and that we owe Him 
reverence and service? Certainly not. That would be 
the contention of extremists, who, like Luther and 
Calvin and all the first Protestant reformers, held 
the incapacity of reason to know anything about God 
or morals as a logical sequence from their false con- 
ceptions of original sin. This impotency of natural 
reason to know anything of God is the traditional 
teaching of Protestantism, both liberal and orthodox, 
even at the present day. Reason, indeed, is finite, is 
fallible, is limited in its field of vision, still it is not 
subject in all things about God to delusion. We do 
not agree with those who would, then, depress reason 
too much, and reduce man to the level of the irra- 
tional creation, any more than we agree with those 
other extremists who would set man above archangels 
and make his intellect divine. 

We hold, with the sound philosophy of the ages, 
that individual reason is perfectly competent of itself 
to acquire with unerring certainty an indefinite num- 
ber of natural truths, and that among those truths 
that thus naturally come within the province of rea- 
son are to be reckoned the existence of God and the 
evidences of Christianity. “For the invisible things 


146 CARTESIANISM 


of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that are made: 
His eternal power also and divinity: so that they are 
inexcusable”. (St. Paul, Rom. C. I., 20. See also 
Wisd., C. XIII-1: Psalms XVIII-2.) 

Thus is the teaching of St. Thomas of Aquin. He 
says: “In the things which we confess about God 
there are two kinds of truths. For there are some 
things true concerning God which exceed every fac- 
ulty of human reason, as that God is Three in One. 
But there are some things which natural reason can 
attain, as, for example, that God exists, there is only 
one God, and other things of this kind. Those things 
even the philosophers have proved demonstratively, 
led by the light of natural reason”. (Contra Gen- 
tiles, C. III.) 

Having once established the existence of God, rea- 
son, then, of itself, can tell us that Revelation is pos- 
sible. Granted the existence of God as the Creator, 
reason can easily conclude also that miracles are like- 
wise possible. Even John Stuart Mill frankly as- 
serted, “If I believed in God, I would have no diffi- 
culty in admitting miracles.” Not only the possibility 
of miracles, but their happening as facts can be dem- 
onstrated by reason alone. Reason, now in possession 
of the following truths— (1) That God exists; (2) 
that Revelation is therefore possible; that miracles 
are likewise possible and have actually taken place 
can advance another step and show that God has actu- 
ally spoken to man and revealed certain truths, some 
of which reason could discover of itself, as God’s ex- 
istence, many others which are altogether beyond 
the power of reason ever to attain or dream of, as 
ree the revealed truths contained in the A postles’ 

reed. 


SOME PRACTICAL LESSONS 147 


Now that this body of revealed truth has been given 
by God to man, reason can prove from historical evi- 
dence independently of the authority of faith or the 
Church. This body of truth has been placed under the 
guardianship of an infallible authority in the Catholic 
Church, whose divinely appointed prerogative is to 
keep intact, interpret and teach to the world this body 
of revealed doctrine. That revealed body of doctrine 
is, therefore, hedged in, and absolutely secure from 
error, and no cloud of doubt can ever dim its truth 
and certainty. | 

Now, grant that there is a divine revelation and an 
infallible Church, whose mission is to guard, preserve, 
and teach that revelation, then no man, no scientific 
research, no exercise of reason can claim the right to 
contradict this revelation and this Church. Human 
reason and scientific research are not the activities of 
a God-like intelligence. No, they are the activities 
of a human intellect, and the human intellect, because 
a created intellect, as well as all its activities, are 
subject to God and truth everywhere. There can be 
no freedom to oppose the truth. No one has a privi- 
lege to free himself from the bonds of truth, or claim 
a right to become an independent creator of truth, 
any more than he has the right of freedom to change 
the multiplication table. 

_ But the champions of independent reason as against 
revelation and an infallible church may assert that 
such a revelation and such a church is impossible — 
well, then, let them prove it. On this the issue rests. 
If they succeed in proving it, then, at that moment, 
we shall cease to be Catholics, and Christianity will 
have been the most stupendous lie in history. The 
burden of proof clearly rests upon the independent 
Rationalists. We are in possession. If they cannot 


148 CARTESIANISM 


prove it, then let them give up their vociferous decla- 
mations of absolute freedom of thought. 

This, briefly, is how the case stands between recal- 
citrant reason and the authority of the Catholic 
Church. The question is a large one. The intellectual 
world cannot ignore it. It is ever living. We have 
only offered a few suggestions to stimulate your own 
reflections and further study. The reason why the 
question has been introduced in the “History of Mod- 
ern Thought” is because the independence of individ- 
ual reason in philosophical speculations form a lead- 
ing, and, it may be said, the fundamental tenet of 
Descartes’ system. Throughout the “Ages of Faith” 
all Catholics held, as they hold to-day with St. Augus- 
tine, “that philosophy, that is the study of wisdom 
and religion are not things apart”. The Catholic is 
convinced that no certain result or conclusion of 
human research will ever come in conflict with his 
faith, just as the mathematician is never afraid that 
his certain conclusions will ever be contradicted by 
the biologist or chemist. Truth can never contradict 
truth. An infallible Church in matters wherein it is 
infallible cannot contradict any certainly demon- 
strated truth of natural reason, nor can any certainly 
demonstrated truth of natural reason contradict an 
infallibly established dogma of the Catholic Church. 

It is this conviction that enables the Catholic phil- 
osopher or scientist to devote himself with great free- 
dom and impartiality to research in every field. It is 
upon this conviction rests the peace between faith and 
philosophy or science. Faith and science are not torn 
apart, are not divorced, but join hands peacefully, 
like truth with truth, though derived from different 
sources. 

It was Descartes’ philosophy that first in its spirit 
tended towards, and ultimately consummated the com- 


SOME PRACTICAL LESSONS 149 


plete divorce between philosophy and science on the 
one hand and faith and authority on the other. And 
by this divorce we mean that individual reason looks 
upon itself, not only as fully competent to discover 
all truth, so that which it cannot of itself know, it 
flatters itself is not truth, but also that individual 
reason confidently enters into the investigation of the 
great vital truths—God, His attributes, morality, 
religion, man’s origin, and last end, without the slight- 
est regard for what revelation teaches on those awful 
subjects. Should reason arrive at results, in its spec- 
ulations, that contradict openly the settled and irre- 
versible dogmas of revelation it cares not. Reason 
throws ruthlessly aside authority and revelation as 
even a negative guide or standard, whereby it may 
judge of the truth or falsehood of its independent 
results. (Introd.) Reason, in accord with the spirit 
of modern thought, goes its own sweet way, just as 
if revelation was never given to man. The obvious 
consequences of this attitude is, of course, the frank 
denial that revelation has been given, and that the 
whole supernatural order, original sin, grace, mira- 
cles, sacraments, the supernatural origin and final 
destiny of man are myths, just because they are above 
and beyond the reach of reason. 

No doubt Descartes personally professed to look 
trustfully to the authority of the Church, as a child 
to its mother, and again proclaimed his readiness to 
submit all his conclusions to her decisions. “I affirm 
nothing”’, he says, “but I submit all my principles to 
the authority of the Catholic Church”. (Prin. IV., 
252.) But the tendency of his speculations were 
widely different. So that if many to-day venture, as 
they do, to set forth theories about God, revela- 
tion and morality, that ignore revelation and the in- 
fallible authority of the Catholic Church, the divinely 


150 CARTESIANISM 


appointed custodian of that revelation, they allege 
that it was Descartes who taught them. The captains 
of reason no longer look to the beacon light of divine 
revelation and authority to protect, at least nega- 
tively, fallible reason from the rocks and shallows, 
when it embarks upon the sea of thought to pursue 
its investigations of the most obstruse, yet vital, 
questions for humanity. They rave about “theological 
fetters’, “ecclesiastical manacles upon freedom of 
thought” and extol Descartes as “the emancipator 
who established modern freedom of thought”, “the 
leader who guided Europe out of the house of bond- 
age”. . . . But the bondage of truth is freedom. 
“The truth shall make you free”. Even Pascal bears 
witness to the reasonableness of the submission of 
what professes to be the results of reason to the es- 
tablished truths of Revelation. We say “professes to 
be the result of reason”, because no really valid con- 
clusion of reason ever contradicts an article of faith. 
Pascal says: 


“If we submit everything to reason our 
religion will have nothing in it mysterious or 
supernatural. If we violate the principles of 
reason, our religion will be absurd and ridic- 
ulous. There is nothing so in conformity 
with reason as the disavowal of the suprem- 
acy of reason”’. 


John Locke bears similar testimony. (Introd. Lect. 
end.) | 

It is fundamental to Catholics that there resides in 
the Catholic Church an infallible authority to pre- 
serve and teach to all nations the objective truths of 
Revelation, because the Holy Spirit is Her guide, 
guaranteed by the promise of Christ. “And I will 
be with you all days even to the consummation of the 


SOME PRACTICAL LESSONS 151 


world” (Math. 28-20). Protestants deny this infalli- 
ble authority and substitute for it the fundamental 
principle that each person may construct his own re- 
ligion from the Bible by his own private judgment, 
and this private judgment is inspired by the Holy 
Spirit granted personally to each individual. The 
tendency of Cartesian philosophy favored this latter 
view, a tendency that gradually developed into full 
maturity in the system of Kant who gave it, as we 
shall see, a philosophical basis. 

Reason, of course, is entirely free in its own sphere 
of scientific investigation. Even if philosophers and 
scientists fall into errors, the Church will look upon 
their errors with indifference, provided those errors, 
masquerading in the garb of truth, do not contradict 
its settled dogmas. Otherwise the Church will leave 
philosophers and scientists to fight out their own bat- 
tles, and correct their own errors. It is not the 
direct mission of the Church to teach a philosophy or 
science. In a word, divinely revealed truths are (1) 
a negative and (2) hypothetical guide to natural rea- 
son in its speculations, and all reasonable men ac- 
knowledge it as such. 





























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